CIS Commandos
by Tarja the wind witch
Summary: After a failed mission which nearly claimed both their lives, Commander Asajj Ventress and General Grievous realise they have more in common than they thought. Things change in the CIS Army and once some things are put in motion, they take a life of their own. Can the relationship between two leaders and the constitution of a new regiment change the fate of the war? AU from S3
1. The Beaches of Naqdaa

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original Star Wars characters. I do own the OCs, though. I do not make a £ from this.**

This comes from an idea I had after watching the Clone Wars S3 episode ARC Commandos depicting the Separatist Assault on Kamino, in which there is the infamous scene in which Asajj Ventress rejects Grievous' offer of help.  
My boyfriend saw it and was like: "Poor general, that was the worst flirt attempt ever."

It got me thinking about why would the Grievousl flirt with Ventress, apart from the obvious (I mean, look at her!)  
Then I was idling my time away on wookieepedia and read that before he became a cyborg, Grievous had had a very tight relationship with a female battle-buddy/lover/wife, Ronderu lij Kummar, which was as kickass as him and very much an independent woman.  
It made sense that he would be drawn to the one female character which shared the same sort of characteristics.

It also made sense that he would feel lonely and isolated and ever more angry because of this.  
If you think about it, apart from Sidious and Dooku, which are without excuses, most of the Darksiders are traumatized, isolated and abandoned and become evil to get revenge/grow stronger than their persecutors/etc...  
Maybe, I thought, if you take away the isolation and give them positive personal relationships, they will behave in a different way: show more empathy, be more responsible for the people they lead. This is also where my OCs, the Gunners, come into play.

I suppose the whole point of this fic, apart from some shits and giggles, is that isolation destroys empathy and makes people worse than they would be.

I am going with the comic-verse version of the first time the two main characters met, namely when Dooku lured Asajj Ventress and Durge onto a space station where Grievous was waiting with orders to PWN anyone who got in. It didn't end well for Asajj and Durge.  
I am assuming the assault on Kamino was not the first time they had to collaborate and that Dooku enjoys seeing them go at each other's throat.

I am also taking a plot point from an alternate version of why did Grievous end up as a cyborg, which said that he had been rejected from Jedi training (possibly after trying as a youngling). I am going with the "blown up with all his comrades in a spaceship explosion" explanation from Labirynth of Evil and the comic Eyes of the Revolution, but I'm keeping the nearly-Forceful angle. It explains neatly how him and Ronderu were able to fight "as one" during the Huk wars. It might seem a lazy solution to some issues, but hey, things are hard enough like this.

Finally, I know a lot of people loathe this pairing, but I can't care less.

Flame all you want. I am fireproof.

Enjoy!

* * *

The tri-wing shuttle glided silently through space.  
Even on the inside, the spaceship was eerily quiet, the gloomy silence broken only by the laboured breathing of the white-armoured cyborg sitting in the pilot's seat.  
At the back of the shuttle, a few of his Magna Guards huddled in standby mode, but they made no sound and didn't interact with him in any way.  
Usually, Grievous was pleased about this state of affairs: he didn't particularly like talking to droids outside of work, before people missed the difference, and, in any case, it wasn't as if droids had actually something interesting to say.  
As a result, the fact that whoever had assembled and programmed his Magna Guards had failed to enable them to talk was usually welcome, but in that particular moment it felt... wrong.

There should be voices at the back of his ship: idle chatter, laughter, even songs.  
If he just closed his eyes he could almost hear them, like a sound at the edge of his hearing range.

_A golden voice singing a love song, accompanied by a string instrument, and another, darker and deeper, trying to sing over it, transforming the song into a rowdy, bawdy shanty._  
_Other voices laughing and someone complaining about how he was driving and he replied that he was driving like that because they had wanted to get there fast, and if he had to drive like the other wanted, they'd get there in a month..._

He could almost recognise the voices and the faces to which they belonged, but as soon as he tried to concentrate on them, they slipped between his fingers like so much sand.  
Grievous cursed and thumped his fist against the controls, feeling an acute sense of loss fill him. Loss of what, he could not say, but it hurt and he was thoroughly fed up with hurting.  
He gunned his ship to full speed and veered towards an asteroid field nearby, zipping between the first few floating boulders without even pausing for thought.  
All his concentration and his cybernetic-enhanced reflexes were required just to pick the best course in a series of split-second decisions. He had no time to delve on the past, no time to feel anything but the adrenalin pumping frantically through what was left of his veins, and the glorious, heady sensation of living in the moment.

He was supposed to return to base on Raxus Secundus after his earlier meeting with Count Dooku, but he really wanted to see who would have the nerve to begrudge him a bit of free time.  
It was not like he had a life, outside his service in the Separatist army, he thought wistfully, traversing a relatively free section of the field.  
Blessedly, the asteroids clustered again on his path, packed like trees in a forest, and he didn't have any more time to think, only to react, turning left and right, climbing or dropping in fractions of a second to avoid collisions and once even going straight through a gap in an asteroid which was barely large enough to let the shuttle through. It wasn't like flying on the Soulless One, but it was still good.  
The sheer frustration of living an artificial life didn't have any space in those blessed moments when he could just be, break the leash and burn through life like there was no tomorrow. He could even forget for a moment the metal body that was both unescapable prison and weapon to him.

Obviously enough, his commlink started to beep, dragging him back to the real world.  
Sighing, he veered out of the field and tapped the controls to allow the holo-call through. A bluish, translucent rendition of Count Dooku's aquiline profile materialised over the control panel.  
Grievous sighed again. What did the old man want from him already? He had just left his private residence on Serenno after a thorough debriefing and an equally thorough beating on the training arena, and, to be perfectly honest, he had had enough of the human aristocrat to last him for at least a few weeks.  
"General. - Dooku greeted with a sketchy nod - I have just received news from commander Tok Ashel. It looks like we have a situation on Naqdaa."  
"A situation?" Grievous inquired. The only thing he knew about the planet was that the Neimoidian had been sent there with an expeditionary corps to occupy it and appropriate its useful, if unspecified, natural resources.  
Dooku limited himself to a nod by way of explanation. "I want you to get there promptly, relieve commander Ashel and complete the mission." he instructed in that haughty, high-handed tone of his that was often enough to nearly send him flying off the handle.  
Grievous held tight to his fraying self-control and nodded obediently because he had no other choice. It had been the Separatists who had payed to put him back together after the Jedi had blown him to pieces, and it was still them who were sending money and relief to his kin, down on Kalee.  
He had a debt of honour and otherwise with them, so he had to obey and endure whatever humiliation, small or not so small, they decided to heap on him.  
"Yes, my lord." he managed to rasp.  
Dooku nodded again, looking pleased with his obedience. "I am sending you the coordinates for the hyperspace jump and some briefing material. I expect you to be there in under a standard hour." he declared and, just like that, he cut the communication.

Grievous allowed himself to curse loudly in frustration and cut the communication from his side as well.  
Promptly another electronic beep informed him that there was an incoming data transfer. He sighed and accepted it. The files pinged in his terminal in a handful of seconds.  
Grievous copied the stellar coordinates file to the shuttle's navigation system and watched it calculate the route. It would take him a bit before he had to jump straight into the upper atmosphere of Naqdaa.  
Sighing again, he activated the autopilot, letting it take the ship to his ingress in the lane. Meanwhile, he opened the other, decidedly bigger, file and started poring over his quite detailed contents.  
Whoever had done the reconaissance for that particular mission had done a thorough and commendable job. The forested terrain had been carefully assessed, the defence systems accounted for, and the buildings and infrastructures that would constitute primary and secondary targets of the expedition clearly identified on the map. There were even static holos of several key features of the operations area.

The planet was inhabited by a technologically advanced, man-sized, insectoid race, which could field high numbers of troops from the warrior and drone castes, armed with their natural pincers and spikes and with blasters. There was a holo of one of the Naqdaan footsoldiers enclosed in the briefing: they looked like Huk enough to make his metaphorical hackles rise, and make him itch to squash the blasted buggers to a paste.  
The material was clear enough and the task looked straightforward, but leave it to a greedy Neimoidian to make everything go tits up...  
He would bet that the idiot had let himself be distracted by secondary objectives to plunder, instead of ploughing straight to the palace and getting rid of the leadership and the nests.  
And, obviously, the idiotic commander had not fully reported on the current situation on the ground, in a pathetic attempt to cover his incompetence, so he would have to go in blind...  
Grievous tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths, but that only triggered the cough that lurked in his chest ever since the accident, making him feel even more frustrated. He repressed the impulse to scream or break something. There would be plenty of targets for his anger on Naqdaa.

Fifty-two standards minutes later, Grievous' shuttle decanted from hyperspace near the outer fringe of the atmosphere of Naqdaa. He could discern a ring-shaped Neimoidian battleship stationed nearby in blockade position, supported by a couple of frigates.  
Everything seemed calm in that sector at the moment, but it was evident that the ships had seen some heavy action. Repair droids were swarming on one of the frigates , the Hidden Stinger, busily sealing shut a sizable gap in its outer cladding. The battleship was in a remarkably similar predicament.  
The other frigate, an older model whimsically named Auntie Fist, appeared to be minus one of her hyperspace engines. She could still jump, probably, but he wouldn't want to try himself.  
Grievous switched on the comm and tapped in the main operations frequency, sending a holocall request to the flagship.  
A Neimoidian officer promptly answered, looking sick with worry.  
"What an unexpected pleasure, General... - he said, looking and sounding anything but pleased - Do you require any assistance?" he added, nervously wringing his bony hands.  
"Are you commander Tok Ashel?" Grievous asked curtly, pleased and irritated at the same time by the Neimoidian's reaction to his call.  
"No, sir." he quickly replied, shaking his head. His silly and pretentious flowerbud headdress wobbled and nearly fell. "I'm..."  
"I don't care who you are. - Grievous interrupted, glaring daggers at the Neimodian - Where is your commanding officer?"  
The Neimodian squeaked before he could fully control himself. "H-he's gone planetside with the troops. - he managed to reply - He should be at the airstrip now. I can give you his coordinates..." he offered.  
Grievous nodded and the file promptly pinged on his dashboard. Not too far from his current position, he noted with satisfaction.  
"You can find him on frequency 4.7 MHz. Do you want me to alert him that you are looking for him?" the officer proposed timidly.  
"You will do nothing of that sort. - Grievous barked - And if I discover you have disobeyed my orders, once I'm finished down there, I'll personally come looking for you, understood?"  
The Neimoidian started seriously hyperventilating and nodded, muttering a compilation of "Yessir... Nosir... I would never... I assure you..."  
Nauseated by his cowardice, Grievous cut the communication and locked the navigation system to Tok Ashel's supposed coordinates.  
The shuttle started the descent through the atmosphere.

Down there it was early afternoon, and the system's bright yellow sun was shining merrily over the forested canopy of the equator of the planet, where the action was concentrated around the capital.  
Soon he could make out a strip of bare land wedged between what looked like plantations interspersed with factories and a strip of sandy beaches lining a bay at the end of which a big port was situated.  
Grievous deactivated the autopilot and took command once again, activating the cloaking.  
The ship descended fast and circled the area once.  
What looked like a bitterly contested fight was still going on in the few square miles comprised between the airstrip, the port and the first factory, a warren of tropical vegetation, marshland and sand, and it looked like the droids under Tok Ashel's command had been cut off from their landing, and were currently trying to break the Naqdaan defences back towards the airstrip.  
The small rearguard stationed at the airstrip was huddled among the hangars and under heavy fire from the air, where clusters of winged insectoids were hovering and firing extralarge blaster. A ring of blaster-armed footsoldiers was trying to encircle their position.  
The Naqdaan had let the males out of the hive, it seemed.  
According to the reconnaissance, the males would be hungry and frenzied, and they would fight like demons for all their short lifespan, before dropping down dead in a few days. They were also big enough to carry away a Neimoidian or a battle droid. It would surely make things more interesting, so to speak...

Grievous sent the ship in a nosedive, then veered at the last moment to careen through the pack of winged assailants. The smacks and thuds of their chitinous bodies against the ship's cladding sent a ripple of satisfaction through him.  
Down on the airstrip, the Naqdaan seemed confused by the fact that their males had been smashed off the sky by an invisibile force.  
The droid troopers didn't react, probably their programming didn't know how to deal with the unexpected occurrence, but a few organic troopers, a bit more spirited, jumped out of their covers and promptly dispatched those of the males that were still moving, before the Naqdaan could form a coherent reaction.  
Grievous thought he had seen a glimpse of red among the confusion. There must be one of Dooku's wannabe Sith on the field.  
He veered again and deactivated the cloaking, circling low over the defenders and strafing the Naqdaans once before landing as close as possible to the cover of the buildings.  
"Prepare to deploy! We're under enemy fire!" he commanded the Magna Guards. The droids reactivated from standby mode, red photoreceptors blinking and stabilising on a ruby glow.  
He didn't actually need to speak to them to command them, he could just use the wireless antennas the Geonosians had implanted on him to communicate soundlessly with his troops, but he was reluctant to do it, unless the situation strictly required it.  
Talking to his droid bodyguards helped him keep up the illusion that those were actually his best, most loyal warriors, the men who would willingly follow him to Hell and back, and not just some stupid, soulless contraptions programmed to do his bidding.  
Sometimes he thought that these small deceptions were the only things keeping him even remotely sane.

When he jumped off the ship, Magna Guards in tow, the small rearguard had reorganised itself enough to give them cover with suppressing fire from a mounted blaster cannon, still a couple of blaster bolts managed to chip the cyborg's white armour.  
"Who is in charge here?" Grievous asked, taking in the handful of still operational droids and the group of battered and tired Neimoidian Gunners. Tok Ashel must think highly of himself to have requisitioned so many of Neimoidia's finest, such as they were. These ones looked even more scrawny and pathetic than usual, but at least they were holding their own.  
"I am." a husky, female voice answered.  
His least unfavourite Dark Acolyte slinked out of the shadows, twilrling her twin ruby sabers before deactivating them.  
Asajj Ventress' fine-featured face was drawn and tired, and her white skin stained with blue-ish insect blood. As usual, she was wearing as little as she could get away with: a blue crop top that left her back uncovered, a long dark skirt and some wrappings around her arms and midriff. She stalked towards him with an irritated expression, her skirt twirling around her legs and her bare feet.  
Grievous couldn't help but let his eyes wander and was rewarded with a glimpse of a slender and shapely ankle.  
She was as beautiful as she was deadly, and as deadly as she was insolent. The damned witch could always make him feel extremely confused and frustrated, so much that most of the time he didn't know whether he hated her, or wanted her, or both at the same time.

"What are you doing here, witch? And where is Tok Ashel?" he asked, trying to set aside his personal concerns, and to consider the situation dispassionately.  
Did Dooku send her in as well in another attempt to pit them against each other? For all his wisdom and Dark Side knowledge, the human aristocrat didn't seem able to grasp the fact that a divided command could only result in failure.  
Asajj Ventress shrugged her slim shoulders. "Who knows where the idiot is at the moment? - she replied, among the silent grimaces of the Gunners - He is trapped in the port, or dead, as far as I know."  
"What possessed him to attack the blasted port in the first place?!" Grievous exclaimed, already exasperated.  
The witch shrugged her shoulders again. "Durasteel ore. There was a large shipment of it lying in port." she replied. Grimacing in disgust, she wiped a splatter of blue-ish ichor from her face. "Blasted bugs..." she muttered.  
"It was a trap." Grievous stated without doubt.  
"Anyone but a greedy idiot would have figured that out." Asajj replied, nodding curtly.  
"And Tok Ashel is a greedy idiot." Grievous concluded, taking out his blaster and briefly emerging from the cover of the hangar to add a few bolts of his own to the storm that was raging on both sides. It wasn't as satisfying as spraying pieces of bug around in a radius of few feet with a high-caliber slugthrower rifle, but it was still effective.  
The witch nodded again, picking up a rifle from a fallen Gunner lying on the ground dead and shrivelled and chipping in with a few shots of her own.  
"This still does not explain what you are doing here." Grievous insisted, flattening himself against the cover of the building once again. It wasn't the tightest corner he had ever found himself in, but it was quite bad.  
"I was in the area and overheard the emergency comms. - she explained - After all the effort I put into this blasted mission, I couldn't let that grub ruin it without doing anything."  
"The reconnaissance! It was you..." Grievous commented, not too surprised to tell the truth.  
She was a perceptive and capable witch, after all. There were few other CIS officers he would have thought of as possible authors of the briefing material.  
In fact, if she was not such an insolent bitch, he could even enjoy her company: she was a competent officer, could hold her own in a battle and had enough devious imagination to outwit the Republicans. It wouldn't be too bad working with her, if not for her lack of respect.

"Ah, so someone has actually read my report..." she purred, spraying the Naqdaan with more blaster fire.  
"Well, obviously! Who would go into an operations theatre without having read the intelligence?" Grievous retorted, rather piqued. The witch gave him a sidelong glance, which told him everything he needed to know.  
"Ah, why did I ask?" he lamented, rolling his eyes.  
"So, how long has Dooku been keeping you in reserve for this mission?" she asked, looking at him with interest.  
After more than a year living like that, Grievous had got to know all the kinds of looks people gave him: the disdainful glance of those who thought that his mostly mechanical nature made him less than they were, the complete avoidance to look in his direction, the quick side-glances of those who didn't want to look but were unable to repress their morbid fascination. Only few people truly looked at him, and even less truly saw him. The witch was one of those few and he didn't know whether to be pleased or disquieted by the intensity of her regard.

Setting these thoughts aside, Grievous took aim down the barrel of his blaster and exploded the head of a Naqdaan with a shot through a composite eye. "About an hour. I was going back to base on Raxus Secundus when he commed me about this mess." he rasped. She considered him for a moment but did not comment.  
Something hissed in the distance and they dove for the ground just in time before an RPG shell took out a chunk of the wall behind which they had been hiding.

"Fucking bugs!" Asajj cursed, nearly facedown among the rubble.

"Trade your gun with mine, witch." Grievous proposed, offering his blaster pistol to the woman.  
She readily handed him the unwieldy Neimoidian rifle and took the proffered pistol, settling down to shoot with much more gusto than before.  
Grievous shouldered the big gun and crept to the edge of the cover, scanning the crowd of Naqdaans in search of the commanding officers.  
"The thinner one with the green headdress." the Dark Jedi suggested.  
Grievous nodded and raised the gun, sighting the bug.  
He took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The bolt went straight through the bug-in-chief's head and it fell to the ground.  
Grievous shot five more times and five more bugs died, including the one carrying the RPG.  
It felt so natural to shoot like that, with the stock of the rifle pressed against his shoulder and his mask. He couldn't for the life of him remember when he had learned to do that, it felt like he had always known. The gun didn't recoil in his hands and all the way into his shoulder as he squeezed the trigger like a slughthrower would do, but the feeing was close enough. It made him feel ages younger.  
"That's some impressive shooting..." the witch commented appreciatively, and for a moment he felt inordinately proud of himself, like a fifteen-year-old, just awarded his warrior's mask, who had managed to impress a girl from his village.  
"It is a pity they don't program this sort of aim into all battle droids..." she added with a knowing smirk and a wink.  
All his good humor disappeared in a moment, dissolved by a red-hot wash of rage and indignation. Grievous took a menacing step towards her, but her smirk didn't disappear.  
He should kill her... He would kill her...

Another RPG shell came whistling in and they both ducked for cover, their enmity momentarily forgotten.  
Fired in hasty retaliation, the shell went high and wide...  
High and wide enough that it hit one of the engines of Grievous' shuttle. The fuel ignited and the explosion was big enough to send all that were not already kissing the permacrete sprawling to the ground, and to deafen everyone.  
Grievous shook his head to try and clear it. "I liked that shuttle, you buggers!" he yelled, popping up long enough to shoot and drop the Naqdaan holding the RPG.  
A few shots whizzed his way, but he was already behind cover.  
"You on the roof! - he shouted to the few Gunners posted there with their rifles - Drop any bug that so much breathes near that bloody RPG, understood?"  
"Yes, Sir!" someone yelled in response and the blaster bolts started whizzing back and forth with renewed purpose.  
"Everyone else, I want suppressing fire on those buggers! Don't let them pop their heads from the grass! This includes you with that cannon! Don't spare any shots, but make them count!" he instructed, ignoring the pointed looks the witch was giving him. There would be time to deal with her later, after he had gotten them all out of this mess.  
A mixed chorus of "Roger, roger!" and "Yessir!" responded to his orders.  
Grievous nodded with a hint of satisfaction: that would give him a bit of time to invent something.  
"What's in the hangars?" he asked the witch, without even turning to look at her.  
"Sorry?" she replied. Her voice sounded confused.  
Grievous turned towards her frowning face. "What. Is. In. The. Bloody. Hangars?" he repeated, nice and slow, so that even a stupid bitch like her could understand.  
She shot him a hateful glance, but replied anyway. "Just some cargo landspeeders."  
"Big?" he asked.  
"Big." she confirmed even though she kept on frowning.  
"And armoured?" he insisted.  
"Lightly, but what...?" she protested, then her icy eyes widened in realisation. "Ah! I think I know what you mean to do, clanker boy..." she almost purred, dark lips curved in a predatory smile.  
Grievous decided to ignore the nickname, he could always add it to her tally and set the account right at a later time.  
"Then jury rig as many as you can. You have about twenty standard minutes." he instructed.  
The witch nodded. "I'll see if I can find some flammable material as well."  
Grievous felt a twinge of fierce satisfaction at that exchange. It had been a while since someone went along with his plans without him even having to fully explain them. It looked like him and the witch were on the same page. It was a rare boon.  
"Take Three and Four with you, in case there is heavy lifting to do. - he instructed, gesturing to two of his bodyguards - I don't want your physical weakness to interfere with the success of the mission." he added, as neutrally as he could, even though he was secretly pleased to be able to get back at her. He just couldn't help himself.  
The witch grimaced but took the insult with apparent good grace.  
"Be back in twenty." she confirmed, slinking away into the shadows between the buildings. The two Magna Guards tailed her, softly clanking as they moved.  
Grievous forced himself to get his thought back on track and set aside his problems with the witch. First things first, he told himself, and in this case it was evacuating whatever troops he had left to regroup and mount a new assault later.

"Who's the comm officer here?" he shouted.  
A Gunner crawled away from his piece of cover, low on the ground but with the rifle tight in his hands. Maybe this lot had received better training than most, Grievous mused.  
"Comm's dead, sir! - the Gunner said, jerking his head towards the shrivelled corpse from which Asajj had taken the rifle - Down on first assault, poor sod. I've got the comm apparatus for now." he added, shaking his head mournfully. Maybe that had been a friend.  
"Get it on 4.7 MHz and get whoever is left in command at the port, as quick as you can!" Grievous ordered, turning back to the fight and selecting a target.  
One of the buggers was inching towards the RPG, low enough in the grass to be barely visible.  
Grievous sighted it, waited for the right moment... and someone from the roof stole his kill.  
"Ha! Eat this, bloody buggers!" a young voice shouted in triumph.  
Slightly miffed, but still pleased that the Gunners were actually following his orders, Grievous switched target and let fly, dropping another grenadier wannabee.  
"Whoever made that shot, you'll get double rations once we're back to base!" he shouted.  
For some reason, food was always a powerful motivator and reward for Neimoidians. His proclaim was saluted by a chorus of yells of joy and envy. Now they would all be trying harder.  
Grievous sighed. It was much easier and more satisfying to lead organic troops in battle. They had purpose, motivation, and most important, talent. With the right command, they could succeed in spite of numerical odds, out of superior training, enthusiasm and sheer faith in their own success. The Republican troops kept on pulling that sort of stunts, much to his chagrin.

"I've got him, sir!" the newly minted comm officer announced, looking at him with pride for a job well done. He seemed completely unfazed by the bolts whizzing and ricocheting around.  
Grievous thought he must have happened on a weird bunch of Neimoidians.  
"Put him through." he ordered.  
The Gunner nodded and flipped the holo-switch. A translucent Neimoidian figure with a stupid headdress appeared.  
"General Grievous, I'm Commander Den Lotok." he said, looking quite harried.  
"Where is Tok Ashel?" Grievous barked.  
The Neimoidian cringed visibly. "He is... indisposed at the moment." he replied, wringing his hands so much that it must have hurt.  
The idiot was either dead or too scared to bother answering the comm, Grievous deduced.  
"I'm taking command of this circus from now, Commander Lotok. - he announced - I don't know what Ashel might have told you, but this mission has failed. The position is untenable."  
Lotok looked like he might have protested, but Grievous didn't leave him the opportunity to do so.  
"Listen to me, you greedy idiot! - he bellowed - We're split in half and nearly surrounded, and there is no aerial support. Be ready to leave your positions at my signal. We'll break the encirclement and regroup here at the airstrip. I'll arrange for pickup with the flagship." he ordered.  
The Neimoidian cringed and mumbled something generally affirmative.  
Irritated, Grievous signalled to the comm officer to cut the call, which he promptly did.  
"Creep up to your mates, officer, and tell them to be ready for action. - he instructed as quietly as he could - I want the best snipers to stay on the roof whatever happens. Everyone else, wait for my orders. Go! Head down and be quiet! I don't want the buggers to overhear." he added.  
The Gunner nodded affirmatively, did a sketchy salute and crawled back to his comrades. Grievous saw them start to chat with those weird Neimoidian hand-signs, then one of them broke away from the group and crept quietly to the next pocket of Gunners. How oddly competent...

Grievous used his own comm to call the unnamed officer from the flagship. The poor sod looked even less happy to see him than before.  
"The mission is being aborted, commander. - he announced as quietly as the vocabulator allowed - I want all troop-carrier craft you can spare at the airstrip in 45 standard minutes. Aerial support would be nice too."  
The Neimoidian could only nod. "But, General... We lost many gunships in the landing and in the hauling of the ore."  
Grievous would have ground his teeth in irritation if he had been able to.  
"I surmised so. Send what you can, anything that can hold troops, and be on time." he ordered, glowering at the hologram.  
With a sketchy bow, the officer cut the communication.  
Grievous turned back to the fight and unleashed his frustration on the Naqdaan. Soon he would be able to tear them apart close and personal, but, for the moment, punching them full of holes would suffice.

The twenty standard minutes he had given the witch were nearly over when she slinked back to his position to report.  
"We've got four trucks ready to roll." she announced, smirking and cleaning her grease-stained hands on her skirt.  
"Any payload?" Grievous asked, crouching next to her.  
"Only few gallons each, but it's spacecraft fuel." she replied with a certain satisfaction.  
"Can't ask for better." he approved, with what would have been a smirk of his own, if he'd had a mouth to smirk with still.  
He gestured to the comm officer and the Neimoidian crawled back to them.  
"Time to make that call, officer." he announced. The lad nodded eagerly and set out to work, coding the frequency a bit clumsily but fast enough. With a bit of training, he'd make a pretty good officer.  
"Who's driving them?" the witch asked, jerking her head towards the rigged trucks.  
Grievous glanced at the handful of B1 droids he had at his disposal, considering, then discarded that thought. They would need all the firepower they could use.  
"We'll rig the steering. - he replied - They only need to go straight."  
"Can you do that?" she doubted, quirking an eyebrow and pouting slightly.  
"A kid could do that. Let's go." he replied, darting out of cover and towards the hangars. The witch, Three and Four followed him in single file.  
As expected, the cargo speeders were a fairly common model, used by enterprises all over the Galaxy.  
Grievous ripped a section of steel pipe from the wall of the hangar and jammed it between the spokes of the steering wheel, bending at the ends so that it would not dislodge.  
"Is this it?" the witch asked disdainfully.  
Grievous shrugged and moved to the next truck. "It's not hyperspace science. It only needs to work for a short while. - he replied - Assmble everyone here except the snipers and the droid operating the cannon."  
The witch nodded and ran out.

By the time he had finished with the trucks, all his troops, minus the ones on sniper or artillery detail, were assembled in the hangar.  
It was probably high time for a rousing speech. He hadn't given any speech to his troops in what felt like forever. What is the point of making the effort, when one's command is made entirely out of droids, who don't actually have a morale?  
But now there were the Gunners and the witch and it felt as good an occasion as any to give it a try.  
Grievous cleared his non-existent throat in a reflexive gesture for which he mentally berated himself straight afterwards.  
Everyone was looking at him expectantly, but none more than the witch, who, judging from her amused little smirk, seemed to be intentioned to see him make a fool of himself.  
"Soldiers! - he started in an almost conversational tone, linking his hands behind his back to prevent himself from gesticulating - The situation is quite bad, I won't hide it. You have seen it for yourselves: the troops in the port are isolated and we are outnumbered. We need to find a way of reconnecting with the main body of the expedition for evacuation, before we're overrun." he explained and he could see that his words did nothing to kindle the enthusiasm of the troops.  
What was he supposed to say to a bunch of people and droids he barely knew? How was he supposed to bridge the gulf between them?  
"You've all been very brave in the face of danger and kept this position despite numerical odds. You've worked hard, and now I'm going to have to ask you another big effort, but I'm doing this because I know you can can make it. - he continued, making it up as he went along - We need to break the front and help our comrades from the port through. I know we're few, but if you follow me, we'll make it through. Do you know what are these?" he asked in a fit of inspiration, pointing to the trucks.  
Among the troops there was a moment of confusion.  
"Ermmm... Trucks, sir?" one of the Gunners tentatively answered.  
"No, soldier. - Grievous retorted - These are traps. You see, Commander Ventress here has kindly stuffed them full of fuel." he explained, nodding politely in the witch's direction. Better if the troops saw a united command.  
The witch nodded back, looking pleased about the acknowledgement. "We'll send them forth, - he continued - the buggers will concentrate their fire on them and... Kaboom! as they say..."  
His troops started to giggle and snort in anxiety-fueled battlefield hilarity.  
"We'll only have to march in after them to mop up the survivors. - Grievous reassured - Commander Ventress and I will go out and play a bit and you will give us cover. How do you like this plan?" he asked genially.  
For some reason the Gunners roared their approval and he couldn't help but feel a little bit proud, not just of himself, but also of them.  
"Then let's go, lads! - he exhorted - Skirmish formation! Light on your feet and look out for incoming fliers! And get ready to do an about-face when we contact the others!"  
There was another chorus of yells as the troops formed up behind the trucks.  
"Three, Seven, open the doors!" Grievous ordered, dashing to the first truck, ready to switch it on.  
The hangar doors started creaking on their hinges and opened painfully slow. As soon as the outside light could filter in, blaster bolts started zipping in their direction. The doors were too slow!  
"Topside! Fire at will!" Asajj yelled, unleashing enough Force to bend the metal door outwards.  
Grievous switched on the first truck, toggled the acceleration dial to full speed and broke it with a punch. He had barely time to leap off, before the vehicle shot away at full steam.  
"Witch! Hold it!" he yelled, seeing Ventress move to the next truck. He mentally counted to twenty, factoring in the speed if the truck, the distance of the Naqdaan infantry and the radius of the blast.  
"Now!" he ordered, then. The second truck shot past him as the first explosion made itself heard.  
"Third ready!" yelled one of the Gunners, balancing on the step of the cabin.  
Grievous counted again, raising a hand to still the eager trooper.  
"Now!" he yelled at the count of fifteen and the lad did a quick job of the switch, disable and tumble off routine.  
"Four ready!" another of the lads announced, full of vim and enthusiasm. He hadn't even needed to give the order to those two.  
They just... followed the flow, just connected in a way that had not happened to him in years.  
In that moment, that mixed bag of Gunners and B1s were really his, more than any command he had had in the CIS.

Grievous made him hold as well, peeking around the wrecked door to assess the situation.  
The witch dashed closer to him and took a look herself.  
The buggers had stopped firing at the trucks, but their formation was in disarray. Some troopers were trying to steer the surviving track away, while the snipers on the roof were happily taking pot shots at them.  
"Now!" he ordered out loud, while he transmitted to the droid operating the cannon an order to fire at the trucks as they approached the line.  
The first shot sid nothing more than a dent in the bodywork. The Naqdaan tried to move away from it quickly then, but the B1 corrected its aim, or maybe just got lucky, and the following shot took out the fuel tank.  
The truck went up in a fireball, just as the following one swerved in on a dodgy propulsor, mowing down a few more Naqdaans, before the droid blew that up as well.  
The grass between the hangars and the beach was now littered with pieces of bugs and smoking wrecks, shining bright in the General's heat-sense.

"Time to join the party..." the witch commented. She ripped off her long, flowing skirt in a decisive and almost careless movement.  
Grievous couldn't help but stare at her: she was now wearing the shortest pair of shorts he had ever seen on a grown woman and more wrappings, but nothing else. Her legs were long and shapely and the curve of her hips...  
He wasn't supposed to notice that! She wasn't even from the same species as him and he was only formally male, as it were, thanks to the accident, and yet he could not help looking and liking what he saw.  
To be honest, he had realised that he liked her _that_ particular way months before, and that was one of the reasons why working with her was so frustrating.  
It took a certain effort for him to steer his thoughts back on track and, judging from the knowing wink she gave him, she had noticed his appreciation, and for some reason it didn't squick her.  
Embarrassed and confused, he pointedly ignored her pleased little smirk and turned to the troops.  
"How do you like your bugs, soldiers?" he yelled, drawing one of his sabers.  
"Crispy!" the Gunners roared, raising their guns.  
"Then let's go! For the CIS!" Grievous bellowed, breaking into a run, towardw the enemy lines.  
"For the CIS!" his troops replied.  
He could hear them follow him at a trot, bronze armour clinking and mechanical parts whirring.  
The sense of connectedness, of belonging, returned, lifting his spirits even higher.

The witch dashed to his side, ruby sabers out and a broad grin on her face. Grievous took note of her position, then they both contacted the enemy.  
He hadn't bothered drawing his other sabers and simply barreled into his first few targets, relying on his mass and speed to topple them.  
His left fist smashed the exoskeleton of a riflebug and he felt the impact all the way into his arm. It felt extremely satisfying.  
The bugs ganged up on him and soon he found himself at the center of a maelstrom of carnage and mayhem. He kicked and punched, kneed and elbowed, pushed and tore at anything that came close, activating his lightsaber only occasionally to impale or behead a particularly pesky foe. He was aware of everything that happened around him: every sound, every image, every minute vibration of the air around him or the ground under his feet was sharp and crystal clear. He sensed, assessed and reacted so fast that his enemies seemed to move in slow motion.  
These were the moments when he truly felt alive.

"Having fun, General?" the witch yelled over the din of the battle. The broad grin plastered on her pale face told him how much she was feeling the rush of the fight herself.  
"Aren't you, witch?" he yelled in response and she grinned again, dispatching another Naqdaan with a precise jab to the neck, before leaping to her next targets.  
Between them, they had mowed the Naqdaan down like grass in the fields.  
All around them, Gunners and B1s were doing a decent job of picking off the bugs one by one.  
Disheartened and badly mangled, the Naqdaan contingeny was retreating. Down the beach the main body of troops from the port was advancing steadily, held off by more bugs. Between his troops and the beach was a patch of thick brush. The defenders on the beach didn't seem to have caught on to their counterattack.  
Grievous exchanged a brief glance with the witch, who nodded.  
"Let the cowards go, lads!" he yelled to his troops, while he and the witch moved to the cover of a low wall that followed part of the course of a brackish canal that sneaked into the brush.  
"Regroup here and take a breather. We're not done yet. We need to help the rest break through on the beach!"  
"But the bugs that escaped! They're going to get reinforcements!" one of the Gunners protested, as he crouched behind the new cover.  
"We'll be gone before the reinforcements arrive." Asajj reassured. Grievous nodded in approval.  
The Gunner quieted and settled down with his comrades to get a quick break.

"Any bright ideas now, clanker boy?" the witch whispered.  
They were packed tight enough in that rut that she was nearly touching him and that he felt the warmth of her breath as she spoke and could smell the scent of her skin: blood, sweat and something sweet and inhebriating that was just her.  
After having grown unused to any proximity, it unsettled him.  
In general, he couldn't figure out if he wanted it, or if it would be better for him to be left alone. With her, however, the balance always shifted towards wanting it.  
He could still remember how smooth and warm her skin had felt when he grasped her arm during the attack on Kamino, how her hand had nearly seared him as she touched his mask. Her words of rejection had stung even more for that.  
She kept on allowing him close enough to hope, only to reject him if he tried to be nice with her. It was maddening, and she knew it, he was sure.  
That must be the reason why she kept pushing the boundaries. It looked like aggressive flirting, but it was just another form of humiliation.  
It couldn't be anything else.  
Not with him.  
And yet he couldn't stop wanting her.

"We need to attract some fire on us to allow the troops from the port through." he replied, feeling weary.  
sense of belonging he had felt during the charge was dissipating quickly, leaving him stranded and isolated as usual.  
"Hit and run?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.  
"Naturally. Hit hard, run fast, and do it again is the secret of success in situations like this." he retorted sharply.  
The witch nodded and smirked again. "I like your approach to things." she said almost sweetly.  
"Stop mocking me." he hissed, getting closer to the end of his tether again.  
"I am not mocking you, general." she replied softly and placidly, looking straight at him with eyes like the sky just before dawn.  
"It would be easier to work with you if you weren't so quick to take offence, you know?" she added with a small sigh.  
"Same here, if you were more respectful." he retorted, unwilling to let her have the last word.  
Asajj Ventress shook her bald, tattooed head. "I'm not being disrespectful, I'm teasing you. It happens between people, sometimes, especially between colleagues." she argued.  
Grievous didn't quite know how to reply to that. Pointing out that they were not strictly colleagues sounded lame and childish even in his head, and would miss the poiny quite spectacularly.  
Was she saying that even as she called him clanker and cracked jokes about droids, she was implicitly recognising that he was a person, an equal?  
He looked at her intently for long moments and she didn't break eye contact. Her look was alert and considering, cautious but almost accepting...

"Sirs..." a young, accented voice interrupted them. Both turned swiftly towards one of the Gunners, who had crawled to them with a bunch of purplish-black oblong things. "We've found some fruit, if you want a break." he added and pushed the objects towards them. He even cracked a confident smile.  
Grievous gave him an incredulous look.  
When did he get that fruit, and, more importantly, what on the Galaxy was happening that a Neimoidian was being generous?  
"Where did you find them, soldier?" he asked, trying not to sound menacing.  
The Gunner shrugged. "Crawled a bit in that plantation over there. There is plenty more. - he replied, jerking his helmeted head towards the field to their left - Have a bite, Commander, it's good eating. It's safe, I promise. Leth looked up Naqdaan food on the Net before we came here." he entreated, pushing the fruit again towards the witch.  
Asajj Ventress nodded politely and accepted two of the four-inch long fruits.  
"What is your name, soldier?" she asked, as she tried to find a way into the fruits.  
"I'm private Garu Cato, sir." the Gunner replied. She smiled sweetly at him and Grievous could perceive two bright spots of heat appear on the lad's greenish face.  
Asajj found a way into the fruits and the purple skin peeled off in strips, revealing some sort of translucent reddish jelly.  
The food Neimoidians preferred was almost proverbially disgusting, but this smelled very nice, so nice that Grievous regretted being unable to comsume food. He would have liked to try that.  
The witch scooped up a pinch of jelly and brought it to her mouth. Her eyes widened in pleasure and she quickly got another scoop.  
"It is really good!" she commented.  
Private Cato nodded enthusiastically. "Top-class, galactic export quality, madam! You wouldn't want to know how much this costs on the Core Worlds... - he extolled, all proud of himself - We might die in the next half an hour, but at least we'd have eaten like Viceroys first!"  
Grievous couldn't help but snigger a bit. "If you and your comrades can sneak so well even when food is not involved, I'll make sure you all have double rations like your sniper friend." he proposed.  
The Gunner's eyes widened in awe. "Really, sir? I mean... Sneaking is what we do best, you'll see." he declared, puffing up his thin chest.  
"We shall see, indeed. - Grievous acquiesced - Go back to your comrades and tell them we're moving. We're going through this brush to get the buggers from the flank. Tell the B1s and the Guards to stay here and cover our retreat, instead." he instructed. They would be too noisy and slow for what he had in mind.  
"Yessir! Right away!" Private Cato exclaimed, then turned tail and returned to his position. Leftover fruit was either stuffed in various pockets or quickly gulped down and the Gunners were ready to roll.  
"I would ask what is wrong with these Neimoidians, but I have the feeling there is something wrong with all the others except these ones." the witch commented, licking away the rest of the fruit from her hands.  
Grievous nodded. "My thoughts, exactly." he confirmed.  
"I suppose we can investigate further after we get out of this mess..." Asajj proposed.  
Grievous nodded. "Let's have another dance with the buggers first."  
"Yes, let's." she agreed eagerly, and for some reason it sent a pang of longing through him.  
Ignoring it, Grievous crept out of the trench and among the bushes, signalling to his men to follow him.

True to Private Cato's word, the Gunners moved quickly and silently, crawling and creeping over, under and between the vegetation like consummated poachers and foragers, which they probably had been before finding their way into the regiment.  
They arrived at the other end of the brush without problems, swiftly and silently.  
They were now less than fifteen yards away from the rear of the Naqdaan formation.  
Grievous made them pause, then signalled fire at will. The Gunners started raining blaster bolts nearly point-blank into the blasted buggers.  
Grievous and the witch readily contributed to the chaos, until a loud explosion was heard.  
They both turned towards the sound, ready to pounce. One of the Gunners had appropriated a Naqdaan RPG and was happily firing it against the buggers, who were in disarray, harried from the front and the side.  
"This is..." Asajj said, astonished.  
"Yes, it is..." Grievous agreed.  
It was mental and brilliant at the same time, in a way that was achingly familiar. If the Gunners survived the mission, he was definitely pinching them from Tok Ashel and keeping them under his command.  
"Let's move, shall we?" Asajj proposed, readying her sabers.  
"By all means... - he replied, taking two of his sabers out of his cloak - Gunners, charge!" he shouted, leaping out of the bushes. The witch ran out alongside him and they contacted the disarrayed Naqdaan lines together.

She danced the dance of death like it was the sweetest thing in her life, and he had to admit that it was a thing of beauty to behold.  
It stirred something in him, something he had almost forgotten. It felt right to have a companion fighting beside him, and a bunch of crazy, hungry, overenthusiastic soldiers at his back.  
This was how it was supposed to be, he told himself.  
He was enjoying this mission much more than he had though possible.

"Incoming!" the witch shouted. Grievous concentrated and distinguished a buzzing sound coming closer.  
A shadow was moving on the ground.  
He let it come closer, dispatching his current targets as if he hadn't realised the new threat.  
The male Naqdaan dove in for the kill, wings buzzing. Grievous side-stepped from its trajectory and swiped with his saber, cutting the bugger in half. The top half writhed on the sand, wings fluttering and antennae twitching.  
Grievous deliberately stepped on the poor bastard's head, crushing it and ending its suffering.  
He turned towards the witch and, as if by prearranged agreement, they moved closer to each other and towards the center of the enemy formation, wading in this last diaphragm of buggers that divided them from the troops from the port.  
Grievous smashed into the line, sowing chaos and creating a space, and the witch flowed in, dancing her deathly dance and despatching anyone trying to get him from the back or sides.  
The Gunners picked off more enemies from a distance, giving cover.  
It worked like a wonder, like they had never done anything else in the world.  
He basked in the sheer joy of battle, letting himself be absorbed by the flow.  
He felt so finely attuned with his surroundings that he could feel the presence of the witch and of his soldiers without having to see where they were, that he knew what she was going to do, how she was going to move, almost before she did, and he knew that it was the same for her, that she was feeling like that too.  
Somewhere during the fight, they had stopped fighting alone, and now they were dancing to the same tune, fighting in harmony.  
It was glorious.

It was perfect, until Grievous felt a small vibration under his feet, accompanied by a shrill noise. It broke the magic and sent him to high alert. The noise and the vibration repeated themselves again and again, closer and closer to each other.  
Grievous disengaged from his current foes. "Landmines! The beach is rigged!" he bellowed.  
The witch turned even paler than usual and backed away as well shouting "Gunners! Retreat!"  
The lads didn't wait to be told twice and started running as much as their long, thin legs would allow. The Gunners had barely managed to reach the edge of the brush and relative safety when the first mine went off at their backs. Grievous and Asajj, who had been sucked in much farther in the fight, were still running side by side. In the split-second before the concussive blast washed on them, Grievous split his left arm, grabbed her by her top and tossed her as far as he could, away from the chain of explosions, then the blast hit him, powerful enough to send him flying like a rag doll.  
Briefly enveloped by a nimbus of fire and deafening sound, he was thrown sideways, impacting hard against someting.  
He felt like his chest had caved in, he couldn't breath, and the air was so hot that it almost hurt to breath anyway, and for a moment he blacked out.  
_It should hurt_, was the first thing he though as he came to, lying on the sand in a heap, gasping for breath.  
The air smelled of overheated metal, sea salt and charred meat and his hearing was taken over by a deafening roar.  
For a moment he couldn't open his eyes, couldn't see, and his mind was assaulted by a torrent of images and sensations.

_Pain._  
_The world was reduced to pain, a pain so horrible that he couldn't stop screaming in spite of his ruined face and burned throat._  
_There was something terribly wrong with him. He couldn't feel anything but pain below his waist, couldn't move, couldn't breathe.  
He was dying._  
_He should be dying._  
_He wanted to die, if only to end that pain._  
_Please, please, gods, let me die_!  
_He'd never walk away from that beach. Let the sea wash him away to rejoin her forever. Please...  
And for a moment there was darkness, there was peace and consolation.  
And then something dragged him back to that beach, to his grotesquely mutilated body._  
_What more did the gods want from him?!_

A female voice was screaming in pain and terror.  
Yes, there was still something he had to do. Grievous struggled to move, shaking and trembling all over.

_The beach was strewn with Huk corpses, but they kept coming, kept attacking, and he could not break through, could not rush to her side.  
She screamed and fought, but claws sank in her flesh, spraying the sand with the rich red of her lifeblood.  
She screamed and screamed as they dragged her into the water, still stabbing and tearing and clawing, until her screams died in the frothy water.  
He couldn't save her._

"No! I can save her yet! She is still alive!" he told himself, forcing the images away from his head and trying to get his breathing under control.  
He couldn't be weak now, he could not panic.  
Ignoring the pain in his chest, he struggled to his hands and knees.  
He was still alive. He could still move. He could still fight.

Blinking sand and blood out of his eyes, he looked up to the beach. It was a chaos of smoldering corpses and wreckage.  
He saw her for a moment, a flash of white and red among the bugs.  
They were heaping on her, dragging her towards the sea and she fought, she thrashed and screamed...  
The phantom images in his mind superimposed on the scene, hinting at a foregone conclusion.

"No! It it not going to end like that! Not this time!" he told himself, rising to his feet.  
His arms split as if by their own free will and he found himself holding a saber in each hand.  
The world became quiet and sharply focused.  
He could see... everything.  
The quiet was shattered by a savage battlecry.  
He was already charging down the beach before he realised that it had come from him, and then the next moment he was upon the bugs, slicing and stabbing and pounding his way through to her, savage as only a desperate, wounded beast can be.  
His breath came in short, painful gasps, but he ignored the pain, ignored the dizziness, and kept going, until he was beside her, semi-submerged by the salty water.  
Blood spiraled copiously in the water and she was barely conscious, barely able to keep her head above the water.  
Snow-white skin and terrified, dawn-silver eyes.  
She did not look like the red-skinned, dark-haired warrior from his vision, but he realised that it did not matter: she was the woman who fought at his side now, the one who danced with him the dance of death, and she was still alive.  
Nothing else really mattered.  
Grievous de-activated two of his sabers and picked her up from the water, folding her semi-conscious form over his shoulder.  
Between him and salvation, the bugs stood vengeful. He ignited his sabers and yelled a battlecry, determined to open his way through them and carry her to safety no matter what.  
An explosion blasted through the ranks of the bugs, scattering them away, then blaster fire rained in.

Soldiers were approaching, rifles in hand and noseless, grey-green faces grim and determined.  
One of them shouted something at him, but he could barely hear them above the ringing in his ears.  
It didn't matter.  
They were his men, his soldiers, and it was his duty to guide them all to safety.  
He ran towards them trusting that they would give him cover from anything coming in behind him, and shifted his hold on her to a more comfortable position. She had passed out completely.  
Back into the brush, the men guided him towards the other side, where the rest of his command was waiting.  
They didn't have much time before the bugs came buzzing on their trail.  
"We need... to retreat... towards the airstrip..." he wheezed, remembering a flash of what had happened before. His voice sounded distorted to his own ears, but at least his hearing was coming back.  
They had been sitting in that trench yonder, chatting and eating fruit not fifteen minutes past...  
It did not matter now, he told himself, struggling to focus.

The troops started trotting towards one of the hangars and he followed them in a daze.  
The snipers on the roof and the droid at the cannon rushed to help them.  
Grievous set her down on the floor between the buildings and propped himself against a wall to prevent himself from folding to the ground.  
If he stopped now, he was not sure he would be able to get back to action.  
"We... we need... to hold out... Pickup is... coming soon..." he panted.  
The Gunners nodded grimly, stationing themselves to shoot at any incoming target with more than two legs..  
"Does anyone know... first-aid?" he asked then, glancing at the witch's still form. Blood was staining the permacrete.  
"I do, sir!" a shortish Gunner replied.  
Grievous nodded. "Give me... your gun... and stabilise her." he ordered.  
The Gunner bowed stiffly and handed over his rifle, then knelt next to the witch and started rummaging in one of the bags attached to his waist.  
Grievous forced himself to take his eyes away from the pair and look out for targets. His vision tunneled and nearly blacked out from moment to moment, but he tried as hard as he could to keep going.

A group of two-legged figures came running towards their position.  
Grievous managed to distinguish some B1 droids and at least a Neimoidian.  
"Hold your fire!" he yelled, even as a stray bolt sailed in their direction, fired from an overly nervous Gunner.  
The stragglers looked battered and smoke-stained and gratefully sank to the ground once behind cover.  
"They are hot on our trail." said the Neimoidian, a roughly-dressed, lowly technician with goggles and a flat cap.  
"How many of you... are still... out there?" Grievous asked.  
The Neimoidian shook his head. "Just us, as far as I know."  
"Where is... Commander Den?" Grievous insisted.  
"Fuck I know, with all due respect, sir! - the technician exclaimed - Blown halfway to the atmosphere, probably." he added, shrugging fatalistically.  
"Grab a gun... and get ready to shoot. We have... ten minutes... before pickup." Grievous instructed.  
The Neimoidian grumbled but did as told, grimly picking up a discarded blaster and cowering behind a low section of wall.  
Grievous closed his eyes for a moment, trying to figure out what to do next. The ships still in the airstrip were little more than wrecks, useless for flight, and the hangars were empty.  
Their only hope of escape at the moment, was whatever ship the flagship would send. Only a few minutes more...  
A pained sound distracted him from his considerations. He opened his eyes and turned towards the source.  
The Gunner on first-aid detail nearly startled. "She is regaining consciousness, sir!" he announced.  
"What are... her conditions?" Grievous inquired.  
"The wound in her leg's bone-deep and she has lost a lot of blood. - the Gunner explained - I stopped the blood flow, but she is not combat fit at the moment."  
Grievous nodded grimly. She would need to be carried.

"Incoming!" Private Cato shouted. Several males carrying what looked like bombs were flying towards them.  
"Cannon! Snipers! Drop them!" Grievous shouted.  
The pain in his chest intensified and he clutched uselessly at his side. He could feel a sort of depression in his lower chest, like an indentation. There was something wrong with him that went beyond a simple panic attack, but it was not the moment to figure out what.  
Blaster bolts started zooming around again, as the best shooters attempted to stave off the threat.  
Between Grievous, the cannon and the Neimoidian snipers, most of the males were accounted for, however some escaped thanks to their sheer numbers.  
Fire started raining on the airstrip.  
Most of the shells fell on the permacrete or on unoccupied buildings with resounding booms but little harm, one however looked like it was flying straight for the space between buildings where all the troops were huddled.  
Grievous looked up impotently and braced for the second explosion of the day, but suddenly the shell was blown off-course, as if by a sudden, localised, gust of gale-force wind.

He turned back to where the witch was lying, except that she was not.  
A tight grimace distorted her pale face as she stood propped against the first-aider's shoulder, and her power roiled around her like the shimmer of heat over the sand in summer.  
"We need to find better cover! I can't deflect them all!" she said between gritted teeth.  
Grievous nodded and started thinking furiously.  
They needed a solid building with enough nests for snipers and enough protection, but still enough space around for a ship to land, and it needed to be close. The maps from the reconnaissance file popped back into his tired mind.  
"The juice factory!" both him and the witch exclaimed at the same time.  
It was perfect, with the back to the cliff and the front to the road connecting it to the capital, and it was less than half a mile away.  
"What?!" the tech protested, but Grievous ignored him, trying to make up a viable plan as fast as he could, before the Naqdaans could send in another squadron of bombers.  
"Soldiers! The building to North-East! As fast as you can! Grab as much gear... as you can carry... and run!" he started ordering with the short, painful bursts of breath he could manage, slinging a rifle around his shoulders himself.

They needed cover.  
He needed to sacrifice someone to keep the airstrip a bit longer as the rest of them made their escape. He looked around just for a moment.  
The choice was easy. "MagnaGuards! Man the cannon! Hold out... as long as you can! No retreat! No surrender!" he ordered.  
They were supposed to be his bodyguards, and they were quite effective, usually, but in fact they were just pieces of metal.  
They would never have the gall to forage for fruit during a mission, or have a stroke of genius, or connect with someone instinctively, and they were also crap marksdroids, even worse than the B1s.  
Leaving them behind felt almost good, in a way.  
"B1s, with us!" he added, almost as an afterthought.

The Gunners had already started stripping anything useful from the airstrip and the first ones were already running to the factory.  
The first-aider was hobbling away with the witch, but Grievous stopped him.  
"Leave her to me... soldier." he ordered.  
The Gunner frowned, perplexed, and hesitated, looking up at the witch.  
"I can carry her... and run... You can't." Grievous added, impatiently.  
The witch nodded grimly. "He's right, Nyto. I'll be fine." she assented and the Gunner nodded.  
"As you wish, Commander. " he acquiesced.  
The witch let herself be lifted up in the cyborg's lower arms without protest, which was in itself a good indicator of how weak and tired she felt.  
Her skin was cool and clammy from pain and exhaustion, but it still felt warmer than the perennial chill Grievous was forced to endure. Her warmth was soothing, in a way that he couldn't even begin to describe.  
"Let's go, then!" he ordered again, and set out at a jog, trying to jostle her as little as possible, but, as careful as he could be, he could still hear her whimper quietly under her breath.

She had nearly passed out again, and he was feeling very near collapse when they reached the new building.  
Collapsing, however, was a luxury he couldn't afford yet.  
The front room on the ground floor had to be protected.  
"RPG! - he called out, recognising the crazy soldier from before, unloading some crates from a couple of B1s - Choose three people... and guard this floor. Keep these two with you."  
"Yessir!" the Gunner exclaimed with a large smile.  
"How many shells... left?" Grievous asked.  
"Two cratesful and five, sir! - the lad replied proudly - I found some in the hangar."  
"Make them count." Grievous instructed.  
"Yessir!" the Gunner exclaimed, and turned back to his work, laying down the shells in an orderly fashion on the floor.  
Grievous nodded and crawled up the stairs.  
He stopped at landing of the first floor, where Private Cato seemed to be coordinating some of his comrades into clearing up the front room of anything useless to the building's defence.  
Definitely officer material, he thought distantly.  
The first-aider appeared at his side, ushering him towards a back-room.  
Grievous followed him in a sort of storeroom.  
The Gunner hastily threw together a few bits of tarpaulin into a makeshift pallet and motioned at him to set the witch down.  
Grievous knelt on the floor and laid her down as instructed.  
For a moment he allowed himself to look at her. She looked fragile, lying there half-conscious and bloodstained, but her strength was still there, hidden behind the soft surface. She was a strange woman, but he was starting to think that he liked her strangeness much more than he should, in spite of how infuriating and rebellious she was. Possibly even more because of that.  
"Hey... Thanks for the ride." she slurred, silver eyes slitting open.  
She reached out and lay a hand on his forearm.  
Grievous didn't know whether he wanted to yank his arm away from her touch, or allow himself to savour it.  
No living, organic being had wanted to touch him except in a fight since the accident, and yet she made it seem so casual, so natural...  
"Don't... don't mention it." Grievous managed to wheeze.  
He felt more tired than ever, but hoisted himself to his feet once more.  
"Look after... Commander Ventress. I'll be... next door... with the lads." he told the first-aider.  
The lad nodded decisively and saluted smartly.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Grievous staggered to the room Private Cato and the others had been clearing out.  
Boxes and crates had been brought in as cover, desks overturned and ammunition handed out.  
Cato himself was posted at one of the windows while the others were manned by other Gunners or B1s.  
It looked like the lad knew his business.  
"What's... the situation?" Grievous asked.  
"Van's dug in downstairs, sir. The tech is with him. They might have found more boom. - he reported, saluting almost automatically - I've taken the liberty to send Auray and the other snipers one floor up. Everyone else is here."  
"Losses?" Grievous asked, sinking to his knees behind the cover.  
Private Cato grimaced. "Of the forces we had at the airstrip, we lost Mynak, Tuuk, Ruul and two B1s."  
Grievous nodded.  
"We were lucky. It could have been much worse if you had not alerted us about the landmines. We beat it just in time. Thanks, sir, from all the squad. Also for not leaving us behind." the Gunner added earnestly.  
"It's my duty... as your CO... to look after you." Grievous replied almost automatically.  
Ever since taking command of droid-only troops however, he had neglected that duty.  
What was the point, if droids could be re-built in batches to the exact same specifications? He used them ruthlessly, like the objects they were, but he had never been so callous with his compatriots, back home during the Huk war.  
Private Cato shrugged. "Many wouldn't have cared. Flesh is cheap on Neimoidia. Droids are expensive." he said dispassionately.  
That comment stopped Grievous in his tracks, but debates on ethics were best left aside for a moment.

"Where is... the comm officer?" he asked instead.  
Private Cato jerked his head to one side. "Dyoc! Get your arse here!" he yelled.  
The comm officer crawled from his cover to theirs. "Private Dyoc Koru reporting for duty, sir!" the comm officer called out, giving a dirty but amused look at his comrade.  
"Call the officer... on the frigate... We need to send him our new position." Grievous ordered.  
Dyoc nodded and started coding the frequency, much faster than the last time.  
"Can't find them, sir." he announced finally, flustered and perplexed.  
"What?!" Grievous and Private Cato both exclaimed.  
"There is no one listening on that frequency." Dyoc clarified, shaking his head.  
"Try again... Frequency 77.52." Grievous ordered.  
Dyoc nodded and carefully punched in all the codes required. From the other side there was only static.  
"They must have seen what happened on the beach and beaten it." Private Cato commented grimly after a moment of silence.  
"Without checking... for survivors?!" Grievous protested, angry and incredulous.  
Private Cato shrugged. "As I said, on Neimoidia flesh is cheap, but only as long as it is someone else's. - he commented with a fatalistic shrug - And to be perfectly honest, I don't think any of the Feds actually like you and Commander Ventress, sir."  
For a moment, Grievous felt a wave if despair engulf him and drag him down.  
He was damaged and stranded on a hostile planet with few troops, limited gear and a seriously wounded officer.  
Luckily anger quickly came to his rescue.  
He couldn't just roll over and die. He had not worked so hard to save the witch and the lads just to stop now, and he also had to survive to rip the head off the shoulders of the bastard who had abandoned them.

"Private Koru... do yo know... how to do a frequency sweep... on that?" Grievous asked, pointing towards the comm apparatus.  
"In theory yes, sir. I've never actually done it before, though." the Gunner admitted ruefully.  
"This will be your... first time, then... Search all the frequencies... Find me a CIS ship in the area... Even just a cargo... There must be... at least one..." Grievous ordered.  
"Yessir! Right away!" Private Koru replied, settling down to work furiously on the dials and switches of the apparatus.  
"Don't worry, lad... I'll get you... and your mates... home." Grievous told Private Cato.  
The Gunner grimaced and then laughed. "No, please, sir... Anywhere but home." he mock-pleaded.  
Grievous frowned, uncomprehending.  
"Any CIS base would be fine, sir." Private Cato added, more seriously.  
Before he could ask for explanations, Private Koru exploded in a victorious exclamation. "Got one!" he yelled.  
"Put them through!" Grievous ordered.  
The comm officer nodded sharply and threw the switch. The translucent rendition of a stern-faced Neimoidian appeared over the receiver.  
Grievous felt a pang of relief at the sight. This was a person who deserved his post and who would not panic when in a difficult situation. T  
hat and he had a Lucrehulk-class battleship. Plenty of firepower to get them out of that shithole.  
"Commander Lushros Dofine..." he greeted.  
"General Grievous! To what do I owe the honour?" the aristocratic starship captain asked, bowing stiffly.  
"I need... your help, Commander. - Grievous replied - I'm stranded with some troops... on Naqdaa... We lost contact with... with the fleet."  
"On Naqdaa? - Dofine repeated, quirking an eyebrow and smoothing his long fingers on his chin - Wasn't it Tok Ashel's target?"  
"It was. - Grievous confirmed - He's MIA... probably dead. It was bad... very bad, Commander. We need out... as soon as possible." he declared.  
Dofine nodded gravely and checked his terminal. "I'm quite a few parsecs from your position at the moment, but I'll have a clear jump in a couple of hours. All in all, the ETA should be in 4 hours. Can you hold out for so long?" he asked.  
"We'll have to." Grievous said, nodding grimly.  
"Four hours? Piece of cake, innit, boys?" Private Cato yelled and was answered by a chorus of yells and catcalls.  
Dofine frowned. "Who is with you, sir?"  
"Some lads... Neimoidian Gunnery Batallion." Grievous replied, shrugging his shoulders and promptly regretting it.  
The impulse to cough started tickling his lungs, but something told him that it wouldn't be wise to follow it.  
"Fifteenth squadron, the Unclaimed!" Private Garu chimed in proudly.  
Dofine grimaced, unimpressed.  
"Commander Ventress... she is here as well... she needs... medical attention." Grievous added, pausing every few words more to repress the impulse to cough than to breathe properly.  
"I'll tell my medical detail to be ready. - Dofine assented - Rendez-vous in four hours at your coordinates, then."  
"Agreed. See you... in four hours." Grievous wheezed.  
Dofine bowed again and cut the communication.

Grievous felt so relieved about having secured a pick-up that it seemed as if all energy had drained from him.  
He was not sure if he would be able to stand up at the moment.  
He felt oddly weak and lethargic, bone-weary indeed, as if he was running low on battery, but a quick, nearly subconscious, diagnostic check told him that the battery was working fine. Still, he felt like the only thing he wanted at the moment was to sleep, just to shut down for a while.  
"Are you alright, sir?" Private Cato asked.  
Grievous was startled to find the Neimoidian hovering at the edge of his personal space. The lad hadn't been so close a moment ago. He must have closed his eyes for a moment without even realising.  
The truthful answer was that he was not, but he couldn't admit it to his soldier. The morale of the lads would plummett if they were left with both their commanding officers out of commission.  
"I... I'll manage." he replied weakly.  
Private Cato gave him a considering look, seeing through his rather transparent lie. The lad was too bright for his own good.  
"With all due respect, sir, you look like shit. - he whispered, softly but firmly - It won't do anyone any good if you collapse."  
Grievous didn't reply, concentrating on breathing instead.  
He couldn't cough until he figured out exactly what was pressing against his chest.  
The engineers had given him quite a few briefings about his condition and what could go wrong with him, so he knew that if the pressurised cocoon enveloping his organic bits tore open and lost pressure, he would die a quick but very unpleasant death unless someone patched him up immediately.  
"Why don't you go take a breather next door, sir? - Private Cato proposed - We can handle it for a while, I'm sure."  
Grievous thought about it for a moment.  
What would make him look weaker, accepting the lad's offer and leaving his men alone to face the enemy or passing out in front of them?  
"You will call me... if anything happens." he ordered finally, trying to sound stern instead of just worn out. If he went to ground for a moment now, he could try to figure out how to fix himself.  
"Of course, sir!" Private Cato acquiesced, nodding vigorously.  
"Do you want me to send Nyto to have a look at you?" he added quietly as an afterthought.  
Grievous shook his head. He didn't really want anyone poking around and he had the feeling he needed the help of a mechanic rather than of a doctor.  
Now that he thought of it, the integrity circuits were firing up in his chest. It was definitely mechanical damage, then.  
"I'll be fine." he rasped, then promptly contradicted his words, cursing under his breath as a sharp pain lanced through his chest.  
"If you say so, sir..." Private Cato commented, unconvinced.  
"I do indeed. - Grievous confirmed, starting to become irritated - Stop fussing... about me... and look out for... for those buggers. I'll be back... shortly." he barked.  
The lad saluted sharply, looking chastised.

Grievous turned and staggered out of the front room and into the improvised infirmary. He didn't go very far into it before he had to shore himself up against the wall as his knees folded under him.  
He seconded the movement, sitting down with his back against the wall and his arms wrapped protectively around his chest.  
If he inclined himself just right the pressure eased a bit, allowing him to breathe more easily. Life was full of little satisfactions like that, but he still felt moments from passing out.  
"General... Are you alright?" a soft, female voice asked.  
Grievous hadn't realised he had closed his eyes until they shot open at the sound.  
Commander Ventress looked much better than she had when he left not long before. She was sitting up, fully conscious and alert, and, from the looks of it had been tending to her minor cuts and grazes.

Now her dawn-silver eyes were trained on to him with a certain apprehension. For a moment he was assaulted by the absurd wish that she would worry about him, that she would care enough to be really concerned for his safety.  
A spasm of longing ran through him, but he repressed it. This was only an after effect of the panic attack and the visions he had had on the beach.  
The truth was that he was nothing to her.

Despite the connection he had felt with her during the battle, she didn't care and wouldn't have any reason to care. She had made that abundantly clear during their earlier collaborations.  
He was alone, as always.  
Grievous looked wearily at the witch and wished it wasn't so.


	2. The fine line between hate and lust

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original Star Wars characters. I do own the OCs, though. I do not make a £ from this.**

Warning: this chapter contains a sort-of-lime and some strong language. Do not read if you object to the main pairing/interspecies romance/romance involving cyborgs.

You have been warned.

Otherwise, enjoy!

* * *

For the first time in a long while, Asajj Ventress wished her master had not died so prematurely.  
However, this was not just one of her recurrent bouts of melancholy.  
At the present, she mostly wished he had survived enough to teach her a bit more of Force-healing.  
Enveloped in the Force, she was concentrating hard, focusing inwardly to send her power into her mangled leg.  
Nyto, the medic attached to the Gunners, had done a really good job of patching her up, but a bit of help was still necessary to coax the wound into closing and to ease the pain.

After the explosion, one of the buggers had caught her unawares, while she was still trying to figure out if she had all her body parts still in place, and, closing its pincers around her calf, had started dragging her towards the water. Then the rest of its swarm had closed in onto her, pushing and hitting and trying to tear her into little pieces...  
She shivered at the memory.  
This probably the closest brush she had had with death, even closer than when her master had been killed. She had really thought that would be it, that she would either drown or be ripped apart.  
And then Grievous had charged in, furious and terrible like an avenging spirit.  
She owed her life to him...  
She might not like it, but it was the truth.

Their first meeting had been an absolute disaster for her.  
She had never felt so humiliated as when that... thing... made from the leftovers of a spaceship crash smashed through her carefully executed technique, regardless of her hard-won training and her attunement with the Force.  
That half-droid had beaten her bloody, nearly killed her, and had stolen her lightsabers, both the one she had built for herself when she was fourteen and the one she had inherited from her fallen master.  
It was the only thing she had left of him and he had taken it away as a trophy.  
Devastated, she had complained about it with Count Dooku, but to no avail.  
Probably the worst of it had been Dooku's disdain and sarcasm towards her after the accident.  
It had chafed, no, it had _hurt_ to be rejected like that by her new master.

It had been easy to hate Grievous back then.  
That unnatural hybrid was about as Forceful as the average doorknob and yet his ability with a lightsaber was on par with hers and he knew it.  
She saw him strutting around with that ridiculous cape and those ridiculous droid bodyguards and seethed in rage. After the Blue Bitch from Outer Space had kicked it, she had been Dooku's favourite student, she had been the best, and now the old man favoured that jumble of guts and relays.  
And the bloody thing even had a higher Jedi kill count than her! Oh, the nerve of it!  
She had tried her damned best to get back into Dooku's graces: worked harder, trained harder, gathered any sliver of knowledge she could put her hands on.  
One day she would reduce that thing to little more than scraps and regain her place at her master's side, she had vowed. She would not be beaten by a droid, no matter how good its programming.

It was then that Dooku had started ordering them to work together.  
Both of them had been outraged at the development and Asajj was sure that Dooku had had the time of his life watching them bicker and trade insults, but if it had been a joke, both of them had been the butt of it.  
When their first mission together had gone predictably bad, Dooku had severely reprimanded both of them, humiliating them, finding what hurt them most and throwing it at their faces like only a Sith Lord could do.  
Asajj had entertained hopes that it would be the end of their enforced partnership.  
She had been wrong.  
Dooku had kept on pairing them up, in a display of sadistic pique.

Despite the fact that they hated each other, both her and Grievous had too much sense of responsability to let the entire campaign go to shit just to spite each other.  
They had learned to work together, to win together. And, by the Force, they had cut a bloody path in the Republican forces together!  
In time, she had come to respect him as a strategist as much as she was wary of him as a swordsperson.  
Even when she still hated him with every fiber of her being, she could not deny that he was prodigiously good at fighting.  
Sometimes she used to sneak to the training grounds and snoop on him as he trained to try and learn how he fought. The idea was for her to gain an edge over him in their next rematch, but Asajj had found that it was also quite aesthetically pleasing to watch him fight.  
Dooku might berate him for lacking for lacking finesse and mock him as a brute, but privately she liked his displays of power and fury and the ingenuity of his approach.

Even with increased exposure and growing respect, her dislike of him had not significantly diminished, though.  
She had come to realise that, unless some programmer had been crazy enough to want to make a droid cranky, and arrogant, and prone to fits of rage, he wasn't just a more advanced model of tactical droid, but a real individual.  
Yes, a real arsehole, who was so full of himself that he might burst, who always tried to meddle in her tasks and who more often than not tried to make ot look like the success of their missions was due exclusively to him.  
She just hated when he treated her like an underling, it made her want to humiliate him, to mock him, and hurt him.  
And it was so damned easy to wind him up. She almost couldn't help it...  
Their enforced partnership was always on the brink of aggression and sometimes just jumped straight off the cliff into violence.  
She had lost count of how many times they had come to blows, only to be interrupted by Dooku, an incoming holocall, or some random enemy. After her initial defeat, she was getting increasingly able to hold her own against him, and it pleased her more than she would admit.

It would be safe to say that, at the beginning of this last, unplannned mission, Asajj actively disliked her sometimes-partner, even if she didn't outright hate him anymore.  
Now she was not so sure about her judgement.  
Asajj was quite certain that she had seen a side of him that was quite different from his usual forbidding and arrogant demeanour.  
He had been almost friendly with the troops, had even cracked jokes, and, by doing so, had managed to make them do things that they would have never dared to do on their own.  
More strangely, after their talk in the ditch, but even before, on and off, he had been... nice with her, in an awkward sort of way.  
He was just terrible at interpersonal relationships, she supposed, but at least this time he had given her credit where credit was due.  
Asajj had been quite sure that Grievous reciprocated her feelings of personal dislike and most of their fights had actually been initiated by him, albeit after she had goaded him into a fit of fury.  
And yet had saved her life, even carried her in his arms despite being wounded and clearly out of sorts, possibly even shell-shocked.  
Why hadn't he beaten it like he did most times when he thought the situation wasn't worth salvaging?  
Why had he risked so much for her?  
Why should he care about her?  
It made no sense, but his actions said that he did even if his words didn't.  
Could it be that he had a crush on her?  
She had noticed how he sometimes stared at her, and she knew that she often had that effect on men, but could it be that he considered her more than just a fine piece of ass, at least when he wasn't totally furious with her?  
That would throw a different light on many incidents from their past collaborations, Asajj mused.  
Maybe his attempts to interfere with her tasks and to provide help when none was required were his clumsy way of being gallant, she realised.  
And then there was what had happened on the beach, just before the explosion.  
That feeling of connection, of belonging... It had felt good to have someone to watch her back, to work with someone who knew what he was doing.  
And they had fought so well together, flowing around each other seamlessly, almost instinctively. It had felt odd, but comforting.

Sighing, she put aside the happy thoughts of mayhem and destruction and the more confusing ones about his behaviour, and forced herself to do something useful.  
Nyto had left her some packets of bacta ointment and gauzes when he had left to rejoin his comrades.  
She cracked one open and dabbed some green-blue goo on a shallow graze on her arm, wincing at the burn.  
She had been trying to summarily patch herself up for a while, when the door opened.  
Grievous staggered in, leaning heavily on the wall, then folded to the ground, not quite in a heap, but almost.  
He just sat there with his eyes closed, breathing shallow, harsh breaths.  
"General... are you alright?" she asked softly.  
His eyes shot open and he blinked slowly, looking rather dazed, but didn't say anything. He looked rather like he was going to pass out at any moment.  
A surge of alarm coursed through her.  
He must have been seriously wounded during the explosion, because usually even being repeatedly Force-slammed into walls or having some limb cut off by a lightsaber didn't faze him.  
Worried, Asajj set aside the bacta and bandages she had been using and crawled towards him.  
"What is wrong with you?" Asajj asked, her voice made hoarse by the discomfort.  
Nyto's drugs had taken the edge off the pain, but she knew it was still there, lurking under the surface. Moving had not been the wisest choice, but what is a woman supposed to do when an ally is looking like death warmed over?  
The cyborg raised towards her a weary golden stare. "I... I have picked up... some mechanical damage... It is... inconveniencing me." he rasped.

He was in pain.  
It was evident not just from his voice, but also from the weary look in his eyes and the way he curled up as if to protect himself.  
She had never seen him in pain before.  
Actually, now that she thought of it, she had not thought that he could feel pain at all. You learn something new every day...  
"Let me have a look, you crazy lump of metal." she chided, gesturing for him uncurl.  
Grievous hesitated, looked down at the damage and then back at her and nodded minutely, taking his hands off the damaged parts.  
Asajj took a moment to fully assess the situation: most of his white duranium plate was either smeared with sand-encrusted, blue-ish ichor, or scratched by shrapnel, and his faceplate was crusted with a reddish stain under one eye, but the worst of the damage was concentrated on the left side of his chest: a couple of the metallic ribs had bent inwards and were pressing against some sort of fluid-filled sack lodged in his chest cavity.  
Asajj took a closer look, letting the Force sharpen her senses. The low light was just a minor nuisance and all sounds reached her loud and clear.

Things were moving sluggishly inside the greenish translucent fluid and she could hear his laboured breaths and a soft, rythmic, thumping sound, rising and falling in time with the movement.  
She frowned for a moment in puzzlement, then a realisation dawned on her, filling her with horror: that movement was his heart beating and his lungs breathing.  
Inside that synthskin sack was all that was left of his organic body apart from what peeked out from under his mask.  
Now that she knew what to look for, she could make out a bundle of blood vessels connecting the heart with the lungs and the rest of the organs. Long, reinforced tubes were stuck both in the lungs and the heart, presumably connecting them with a pump and with his head respectively.  
It looked sophisticated but also terribly barbaric and intrusive.  
She had had to be attached to life support once, when Grievous beat her up within an inch of her life on their first encounter, and she didn't like even a bit the feeling of having a tube stuck down her throat.  
This had to be worse. Incommensurably, maddeningly worse. Uncomfortable and painful and oh so depersonalising.  
It was no wonder that he had a hair-trigger temper, living in these conditions all the time, without any respite.  
She would have rather died than living like he had to, but knowing them as she did, she doubted Dooku and the rest of the Separatist leaders had actually left Grievous the luxury of choice.  
A wave of what could only be pity washed over her, but she quickly suppressed it.  
She highly doubted he would want her pity, it was already miraculous that he had accepted her help.  
The last thing she wanted was to set him off in such cramped quarters when she was in such weakened state: he'd mash her to a pulp without too much effort.  
Then again, she doubted he could muster the energy to attack her at all, for once.  
He was taking too-shallow, too-fast breaths and whatever snippets of first-aid training she could recall told her that this way he couldn't get rid of all the carbon dioxide in his blood. It was making him lethargic and could even kill him, if he didn't get himself fixed in due time.

"It's only inconveniencing you, eh?" she asked, looking up at him with a quirked eyebrow.  
Grievous rolled his eyes quite expressively and sighed. "It hurts... and I can't... breathe properly..." he admitted softly.  
"Well, you've got two bent pieces of metal pressing on your organs... Have you tried to straighten them?" she asked.  
He shook his head "The position... is awkward... I can't see... what I am doing. " he clarified.  
Asajj nodded. "One of the two is twisted. There is a sharp, pointy bit sticking out." she revealed calmly.  
His eyes went quite wide under the mask and he started to breathe even more shallowly. He was scared and she could imagine why.  
"Yes, exactly. - she confirmed, nodding - You were lucky you didn't tear yourself open already, running around and carrying me."  
"I hadn't realised... how bad it was until... later. I though it was... just a panic attack." he admitted, shaking his head slowly.  
"And therefore you didn't stop." she continued, raising her eyebrows in disbelief, but also admiration.  
"I couldn't... - he replied - There was... no time... Couldn't be weak... Had to get... everyone... to safety."  
Asajj shook her head. So he had actually had a PTSD episode, but he somehow managed to ignore it through sheer stubbornness.  
That was some committment to a task...  
"I could try straightening them myself, but..." she started.  
"But you won't... right? Leave me alone, then... Bitch." he spat out bitterly and wearily, eyes drifting closed.

Asajj cast him a surprised look. That stung!  
Why did he have to be such a prick just now, after being all nice and gallant and saving her?!  
And just as she was trying to help him!  
"Well, maybe I was going to, but why should I now? - she declared, more offended than she thought she would be - I can leave you like this if you prefer. I wonder how long you can last without coughing..." she purred.  
He shot her a penetrating glance, but his animosity died down as quickly as it had flared up.  
"You weren't... going to help me... anyway... Why... why should you care... if I live... or die?" he replied with certainty, turning his face away from her.  
"Colleagues, remember? You helped me, I was going to help you. Was being the operative word." she replied, sounding more cool and collected than she felt.  
It would be wrong to deny him her help after what he had done for her. She always paid her debts.  
But she wasn't anyone's bitch and she was not going to accept being treated like one by anyone.  
Especially not by him.

Grievous turned his gaze back towards her and she thought he looked rather surprised.  
He took a breath to speak and she thought he was going to aplogise, but she had forgotten how bloody stubborn he could be.  
"I think... Dooku wouldn' be... impressed... with you... if I sprung a leak... and died... while you just sat there... doing nothing..." he wheezed, also trying to sound calm.  
"True enough, but I think I can survive his displeasure. - she retorted, smiling her sweetest smile - The question is, can you?"  
Golden eyes tightened under the cyborg's bone-white mask but he did not reply.  
"I suppose that if that thing ripped, it would be an especially painful and claustrophobic way to go... - she commented, holding his smoldering gaze with her own - Are you feeling lucky, General?" she asked.  
The concrete floor chipped under an armored fist and Asajj couldn't contain a startled intake of breath. Would she be fast enough to get out of range before he lashed out?  
"What... what do you want me... to do? Apologise?" he growled, tensing as if to spring into action.  
He was mere seconds from snapping and then a flash of pain passed over his eyes and he slumped back down, uselessly clutching at his chest. Asajj repressed a relieved sigh.  
"It would be enough for you to stop calling me a bitch. Witch is fine if you can't do without. I might even like it. - she replied, firmly but gently - Remember that thing about teasing and insulting? I wouldn't mind you teasing me, but I won't let you insult me. Respect needs to go both ways." she added.  
Grievous nodded quietly, looking sheepish.  
It was almost as good as an apology, coming from him.  
"As I was saying, - she resumed, mollified by his reaction - I could try to straighten them out forcefully, but if they moved in the wrong direction... well, then we'd have a problem."  
Grievous sighed. "What... do you suggest... then?" he asked.  
"I think the best option is to remove them. I can hold them in place with the Force and... doesn't one of your sabers shorten?" Asajj asked.  
"And this... is the best option... you can think of?!" he retorted, clearly not impressed. Sarcasm showed clearly even on his synthetic voice.  
"If you can think of anything better, let me know. In the meantime I would suggest that you keep taking shallow breaths..." she teased, crossing her arms gingerly under her breasts.  
Grievous cast her an intense look and grumbled something unintelligible under his breath.  
A lightsaber was shoved in her direction.  
"Do it then... damn you!" he growled.

Asajj accepted the saber with a minute nod and examined it for a moment.  
The hilt was pretty basic and undecorated metal, straight and longer than usual. Whoever Grievous had taken it from must have favoured a two-handed style of fighting. She thumbed the activation button and a green blade boiled forth, also a bit longer than standard.  
She thumbed it again, triggering a second switch and the blade shortened into a shoto knife.  
"I would stay very still, if I were you." she advised quietly.  
He nodded and his breathing noticeably accelerated.  
She didn't say anything to tease him: she'd be totally shitting herself if their positions had been reversed.  
He was showing an enormous amount of trust in her and her abilities by letting her help him like that. He didn't actually have any other option, it was true, but still, it was humbling.

Manouvering the short blade carefully, she started cutting into the first piece of metal just before the bent section.  
The durasteel the Geonosians had used was evidently top quality, because it took quite a long time for it to start melting. She gripped the section into a tendril of Force to prevent it from shifting or tilting.  
Grievous had gone very still, like only a mostly inorganic being could, eyes closed and barely breathing.  
"Am I hurting you?" she asked belatedly, as the blade slowly cut through the thick rib.  
"I can feel it... but it is not... painful." he replied softly. Someyhing in his tone and posture told her that, even then, it was not a pleasant feeling.  
"I am through. - she announced finally, extinguishing and setting down the blade - Can you hold your breath? I'll take it off."  
"Do it." he ordered, tensing even further.  
Asajj nodded reflexively, even if he could not see her, and concentrated hard on the piece of metal, shifting it slowly outwards. He had really stopped breathing and if it was not for the fast beating of his heart, he would truly look like a droid. She kept going until it was clear of his chest cavity, then let it clatter to the ground.  
Both her and Grievous took as deep a breath as they dared.  
"One down, one to go. - she announced - Do you need a break?" she asked.  
Grievous opened his eyes again and shook his head. "The sooner done... the better." he wheezed, but with a determined look in his eyes.  
"A man after my own heart. - she commented, smiling and winking teasingly to keep his morale up - Ready when you are."  
Grievous took another deep-ish breath. "Now." he ordered.

Asajj lighted the blade again and set out to work her way carefully through another couple of inches of durasteel.  
The second rib was the most damaged one, the one that actually threatened the integrity of the synthskin, so she took extra care in cutting through it.  
She could feel the sweat start to bead on her forehead and her heart pump faster as she kept on working. She could not allow herself any sloppiness, not one little mistake.  
"It's going to go." she warned, as the metal parted completely and came to rest only over the immaterial thread of energy created by her will.  
She didn't dare setting down the blade, this time, and slipped in the flow of the Force even deeper, as deep as she dared.  
It seemed to her that time had stopped as the piece of metal moved millimeter by millimeter away from what was left of whatever Grievous had been before.  
It floated obediently, without a jolt, and as soon as it was safely out of the way, she flung it away hard enough that it embedded in the wall to half its length.

Grievous took a deep, hungry breath and promptly started coughing so hard that he nearly bent double.  
It sounded harsh, and painful, and, now that she was still immersed in the Force, she could almost see the tendrils of pain emanating from him, like drops of ink in a glass of water.  
She could imagine he had been holding the impulse to cough for a while, probably since he had realised how bad the situation was, and it hadn't done him any favours.  
It seemed like ages before it calmed down and he managed to just sit there with his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around his chest as if to hold himself together, looking like the picture of weariness.  
It was strange to see him so weak and helpless.  
It didn't seem right, somehow.

Asajj switched off the saber and crawled nearer, until she could feel warm air hit her face as he breathed.  
It smelled like blood.  
Shaking her head, she set her right hand on his chest plate, extending her senses towards him. She could sense damage, but his biology was so jumbled up that she could not tell if it had something to do with the synthskin rupturing or not.  
"What are you doing?" he asked, coughing again. His eyes were wide with worry and he was starting to tense up.  
Why did a simple contact rile him up so much?  
Was he worried because she was using the Force?  
"I need to check that there is no damage inside." she told him and before he could reply negatively, or reply at all, she had already sneaked a hand in the gaping hole where his ribs had been, to gently rest it against the synthskin cocoon.  
It should have felt gross, but it did not.  
It felt warm and alive, and he gasped softly at the contact, arching his neck and closing his eyes again.  
He could feel that, really, truly feel her touch as she gently ran her hand over the warm, lifelike tissue, checking that it was whole and dry.  
Small, helpless noises of what could only be pleasure escaped him, and his heart beat faster and faster against her hand.  
Asajj felt her throat constrict and her eyes burn with tears at this uncharacteristic, but heartfelt, display of need and weakness.  
Now she realised why he was always so tense when she got too close him or initiated any casual contact: probably hardly anyone had touched him in years, ever since the accident. Then again, why would anyone want to get close enough to try and initiate any contact with him? He wasn't exactly the most approachable person even in the best of times.  
Through the Force she could feel that he had almost forgotten how it felt to be touched. And this was different from any other kind of contact, unfiltered, raw, almost too much.  
He looked like a droid and most of him was made of cybernetics, it was true, and yet there was a person still in there, who could suffer, feel pleasure and yearn for it, who could remember how it felt like to be fully alive, and know that he would never be whole again...  
She had never truly realised how much strength of will he must need just to find a reason to go on day after day, living like that.  
He never complained, never showed any weakness.  
She was the only one who knew about his yearning, the only one who had witnessed him nearly come undone for a simple touch. It had been her to send him over the edge. It was a fact she would treasure.  
She allowed feelings of possessiveness to run riot inside her only for a moment before she slowly withdrew her hand and backed off, giving him some space.  
She tried to blink away the moisture from her eyes, imagining that he would be furious and start yelling at her for witnessing his moment of weakness, but he just turned an unfocused gaze towards her and stared at her in silent wonder for long moments.

"Everything is still in one piece down there. - she said, breaking the silence when it became unbearable - But there is some bleeding in your lungs." she added.  
He shrugged.  
"It is permanent. They got damaged in the accident." he explained tonelessly, looking away.  
Asajj tried to tell herself that at least they didn't have much flesh left to oxygenate, but in that situation, that particular brand of dark humour wasn't that fun.  
In fact, it wasn't fun at all. It was very sad and terrible.  
The silence stretched again between them. It was him who broke it this time.  
"Thank you for helping me in spite of our differences." he said as softly as the vocabulator would allow, casting a brief glance her way before looking away in the distance. That was new, Asajj thought. She could use that opening to throw his weakness in his face, exploit that prime occasion to mock him and keep things as they were. Or she could be nice to him for a change and see what would happen.

Asajj nodded politely, if somewhat sketchily because of her injuries. "I was just returning a favour, General. Besides, if you died, I'd be left only with Dooku's pups and that crazy Gen'dai mercenary for company." she teased, waiting for his next move. He seemed to appreciate her humour, now that the teasing was not directed at him.  
"Ah. Then it's not just me... You don't go along with the other acolytes either, eh?" Grievous asked.  
Asajj scoffed. "I'd rather work with you, and that's saying something. - she teased again - They are even more arrogant than you are, and they don't even have as many kills to their credit. Even though I think Padawans should not count..." she added, unable to help it.  
"If they send them into battle, it's because they think they can handle it. I wouldn't send any of my children in battle if they couldn't stand a chance." he replied stiffly.  
Asajj didn't comment, but found herself wondering if he had had any children in his previous life.  
"Are you feeling any better, now?" she asked, changing subject.  
"Yes. Very much better. - Grievous replied - How is your leg?"  
Asajj shrugged. "I won't be running around anytime soon, but considering I could be dead, I'm feeling reasonably well." she said.  
Grievous nodded. "We're being picked up in four hours, if the buggers don't wipe us out first. They will have a proper medical bay, I assume"  
"Four hours?!" Asajj exclaimed, bewildered.  
Grievous nodded again. "Those bastards from the support fleet turned tail and fled. We've managed to contact Commander Lushros Dofine, but he has quite a long way to travel."  
"Damned Feds! This time I'm going to see them tried in court-martial!" Asajj exclaimed, properly incensed.  
"You and me both, witch. I'll even write the report with you, just to see the commanding officers shitting themselves in court." Grievous agreed quite vehemently.  
"That would be a sight..." Asajj admitted, laughing quietly.

They lapsed into silence again, but it was somewhat more companionable. Asajj wondered why he was tarrying with her instead of going back to the frontline, but she was not going to complain. She was happy to concede that he wasn't too bad company, if he was in a good mood. The explosion must have addled her brain...  
"Thanks for rescuing me before." Asajj offered, somewhat awkwardly, after few seconds, extending her own metaphorical branch of olive.  
"I don't understand why you risked your life for me like that, since you mostly can't stand me, but... Thanks anyway..." she added, shrugging as if dismissing her own words.  
Grievous did not reply, but pointedly looked away from her, and, judging from his hunched and defensive posture, seemed even slightly ashamed of himself. Talk about awkward...  
"You were having a flashback, right? Because of the explosion..." Asajj continued cautiously, complementing her observations with guesswork.  
More silence.  
Asajj was nearly resigned to letting the conversation fall, when he suddenly started talking.  
"It wasn't just the explosion. - he said softly - It was you. You reminded me of a person I used to know. I think you always have, and I had just never realised before." he added, turning back towards her with a sad, lost expression.  
Asajj looked at him in confusion. He never talked about his past to anyone, except to say that the Jedi had ruined his life. Should she feel honoured or just awkward?  
"The fight on the beach, and those blasted insects, and you were being dragged in the water... - he continued, nearly desperate - I... I don't know what happened. I had to do something! I couldn't... I couldn't let it happen again..." He lowered his head in defeat, curling further upon himself.  
"You could not save her. - she whispered, feeling again like she should do something, reach out and help him - Who was she?"  
Grievous shook his head. "I don't know... It's like when you try to remember a dream and you can recall what you felt, but not what you saw. And I know I should remember, but I can't, and she is lost... It feels like I've betrayed her..." he trailed off.  
"You loved her." Asajj said softly, sitting on her hands to repress the impulse to reach out for him.  
He raised his head again. "I don't even know if she is real or just a figment of my imagination..." he replied.  
Asajj could nearly feel a cloud of grief hovering around him, dark and dense, sucking away all the light and again wished she could do something.  
"But you saved me, this time." she said softly.  
Grievous gave her another long and intense look, then nodded. "And now you saved me. You saved all of us at the airstrip." he replied, sounding slightly less brokenhearted.  
Asajj smiled, glad of the recognition. She would have never thought he would acknowledge her intervention. The situation was getting steadily better.  
"I'd say we are even, colleague." she declared, upping the game even further. Would it be so bad if they managed to be civil to each other?  
"Didn't you say we were never going to be equals?" he asked, lightly but with a terribly serious undertone to his question.  
"Maybe I'm changing my mind..." she offered and she could see him light up like a youngling with a new present. It made her feel almost bad for the way she had treated him on Kamino, but, in her defence, there was already enough gossip about her, that she could hardly afford to be seen as dependent on any of her male colleagues.  
"Let me know when you have a verdict." he said eagerly and hopefully.  
Asajj smiled and nodded. Why was it so important to him that she of all people, should validate his status? Why not the other Acolytes, or Dooku, or Admiral Trench, or any other of the CIS officers? What was so special about her?

Searching for an answer, she had a better look at him, scrutinising, taking every detail in. Unfortunately, the first thing she noticed was that red fluid was dribbling down his mask in a thin rivulet from under his left eye, like a trail of tears, and that distracted her quite a lot.  
"You are bleeding." she warned, pointing to her own face to show him where. He must have reopened some wound when he had hidden his face in his hands earlier.  
Grievous touched a finger to the spot and it came back painted in red. He cursed in what sounded like a foreign language.  
"It's just a graze." he minimised, shrugging his armoured shoulders.  
"It's bleeding quite a lot. - Asajj objected, crossing her arms under her breasts - Let me have a look. You might have some shrapnel stuck in there." she instructed decisively.  
"It's nothing. Unhand me, witch!" Grievous protested, as she crawled back towards him and grabbed his forearm in support to hoist herself to her knees.  
"Stop fussing, you big baby! I can't see anything if you keep moving!" she scolded, grabbing his chin to prevent him from turning his head away.  
He could have stopped her, he could have thrown her across the room without any effort, but he did not.  
"I didn't know you were vying for the position of resident CIS nurse..." he teased, submitting to her touch.  
He didn't appear to mind the contact anymore now. He liked it, and she was reasonably sure he was trying to flirt with her, in his usual aggressive way. This time, she played along.  
"Hoping to see me in a sexy white number?" she purred, gently prodding the scaly, blood-red skin below his left eye.  
"It can hardly be more revealing than what you normally wear on the battlefield..." he commented haughtily, quirking what would have been an eyebrow on a humanoid.  
"I'm glad someone finally notices. I was despairing, truly..." she mock-simpered.  
She had noticed the looks he gave her sometimes, and the little show she had put up in the hangar, taking off her skirt in front of him, had just been a confirmation. She had done that mainly to rile him up. He might be lacking in equipment, but sure as hell he was not gender-neutral, or at least she had never considered him so, and she liked the effect she had on him. It could be just shallow lust, but at least it was personal.  
Grievous looked quite embarassed. "Well, I'm not blind! And if you don't want to be looked at, you shouldn't dress like that!" he protested.  
"I dress however the hell it pleases me. - Asajj replied firmly - That doesn't mean I don't appreciate that someone notices me as a woman." she added and continued her examination, noticing that once again he was leaning into her touch.  
"You are impossible to overlook, witch. - he replied - Ouch! What the...!" he exclaimed soon afterwards, batting her hands away decisively but still somewhat gently.  
"You've got a piece of something stuck in the wound. - she announced calmly - And by the way it's not a graze. I can almost see the bone." she added sternly.  
"Ah! I'll need stitches... Wonderful..." he commented grumpily.  
Asajj let go of him and used the Force to collect the first-aid kit from where it was lying across the small room.  
"Who would have thought the mighty General Grievous would be afraid of a few stitches?" she teased, getting a few pieces of gauze and a tube of bacta out.  
"I'm not afraid!" he bristled. The sensor panels he had on the sides of his head, where the ears would be on a rhoughly humanoid organic being, flattened against his skull like the ears of an enraged cat. She had never noticed that before, but apparently his mind subconsciously interpreted them as actual ears and moved them accordingly to match his expression.  
Asajj found herself smiling at the notion. He'd kill himself if he realised how strangely cute that made him look sometimes.  
"Sure you aren't..." she replied with a mixture of doubt and condescendence. She wet a few gauzes with some bacta, took one and thoroughly wiped the small tweezers from the kit. Hopefully they'd be equal to the task at hand.  
"It's just that... Be glad you don't have a Geonosian for a healer. They treat you like you aren't even there." Grievous said and Asajj detected a hint of nervousness in his voice.

She had partially tuned out of the Force and now she slid back in, noticing how his heartrate and breathing had accelerated, and that his eyes had gone a bit wider and a bit panicky. She had not done anything but cracking open the bacta, she thought, and then she realised that this was the problem.  
She had heard that he had been left soaking in a bacta tank for quite a while as the Geonosians decided how to fix him up, and, judging from how little was left of him, he must have been really mangled at the time. It was no wonder that the mere smell of bacta was enough to bring back bad memories.  
Asajj could feel him trying oh so hard to keep control and keep the panic at bay, but his gaze was starting to assume that faraway, vacant quality that indicated an impending flashback episode.  
He could probably snap out of it by himself, since he had already ignored a full-blown panic attack not long before, but it didn't seem fair to leave him to fend for himself, if she could help him. Having gone through PTSD herself after her master's death, she knew it wasn't fun.  
She needed to distract him, if possible, maybe talk to him, reassure him or something, and she needed to do it quickly, before he was sucked even further into the bad trip.  
It only took her a moment to realise that she had a way of taking his mind off the dangerous route, and at the same have a bit of fun for herself.  
He liked to be touched and to be treated like a person. She didn't have any problems with that, at the moment, and he had allowed her in his personal space already. Plus, he clearly found her attractive...  
She wondered how far she could push this.  
Would he allow her to try and seduce him? She was curious. He obviously hadn't seen any action of that kind after the accident, but she wagered he would be eager for it, judging from his earlier reactions.  
She could be the first into uncharted territory...  
She could make that arrogant prick beg...  
She could give that broken man some solace...  
So many reasons to try, none to stop her...

Nodding to herself, she dove deep in the Force to be better able to gauge his reactions and beat a hasty retreat if necessary, then, tweezers in hand, crawled straight onto his lap, straddling him.  
"What are you doing?!" he exclaimed, looking terrified. His eyes had gone very wide and even his surrogate ears had perked up in alarm, but at least he didn't look lost anymore. He was solidly grounded in the present and Asajj could sense his confusion, embarrassment and mild panic.  
It was so terribly amusing...  
"You're too tall and I've got a mangled leg, if you recall. - she replied, pretending to concentrate on the task - This is the only way I can fix you up."  
"You... I don't need..." he stuttered, clearly flustered.  
As Asajj had surmised, he was interpreting the situation as improper and suggestive, despite his lack of... equipment. He was very tense and was keeping accurately still, with his hands as far as possible from her body. Just like an awkward, unexperienced teenager...  
"Didn't you say that pickup is in four hours? - she asked - If it is so, I suggest that you stay still and let me work. The longer the shrapnel stays in, the more likely an infection is. I doubt it'd be fun with this mask if it starts swelling..." she added, gently tapping on his faceplate.  
Grievous cursed not quite under his breath. "A bit less than four hours but... - he had to admit - Blasted Feds! If I lay my hands on that officer from the frigate..."  
Asajj nodded sympathetically. "Neimoidians are an useless bunch, except for our Gunners. - she agreed - Now I suggest you stay still. And don't even think about trying anything funny, OK?"  
"I... I'm not that kind of person! - he replied, even more flustered - If anything, I would be more worried about you behaving improperly, witch..." he added, all righteous and proper, only to gasp in mixed pleasure and pain as she started cleaning up his wound oh so slowly and gently.  
"Do you think that I'm some sort of whore?" she asked softly, looking straight into his eyes.  
By the Force, she loved sparring verbally with him like that...  
"Aren't you? - he challenged, keeping his baleful golden gaze locked on her, but his voice was already becoming even raspier than usual - The other officers say that you got your commission by sleeping with Count Dooku."  
Asajj laughed. "Typical... Do you think it is the truth?" she asked, refusing to avert her gaze and try to explain like a "modest woman" would have done.  
He hesitated for a moment, possibly caught off-guard by her question.  
"No. You're too good a warrior to need to resort to something like that." he finally admitted, shaking his head.  
Asajj felt the odd impulse to kiss him. He might be a prick for many other reasons, but at least he respected her, most of the time, even though she was a woman. It was not an automatic given, within the CIS army.  
"What those jealous bastards say and what's actually true are very different things. - she replied with a smile - Dooku is old and sour like a lemon left in the refrigerator too long... I highly doubt that even with the aid of the Force he would be able to get it up." she added.  
He gave her a bemused and slightly disgusted look. "This is an image I did not need." he protested.  
Asajj laughed lightly, took the tweezers and grasped the end of the piece of shrapnel firmly.  
"If I had to pick someone to fuck in this army, he would be one of my last picks, just before Gunray and his cronies, the Geonosians, and Durge." she added, pulling on the shrapnel slowly but surely. Enough time had passed that it was starting to become embedded in the flesh, but eventually it came out.  
Grievous cursed softly and she quickly blotted the blood that was welling out with a bacta-soaked gauze.  
"Well, I never even thought you would sink so low, witch... I imagined you would have better taste in men." he retorted quite heatedly.  
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." she said smugly, taking her time cleaning the blood and the spatters of bug fluids off his face.  
He was starting to lean into her touch again, relaxing just a fraction.  
"Dooku's pups wouldn't do either. There is enough Jedi left in them that they probably don't know what their tonker is for, and if I wanted to bang a Jedi I'd go for the real thing, thank you very much." she continued, leaning just so that her breasts grazed his armoured chest.  
She felt a minute shudder run all over him and mentally patted herself on the back for her insight.  
She had seen him fight, and walk, and just be himself, enough to realise that, even if his body was mostly artificial, he inhabited it quite naturally. He was graceful, in his imposing and menacing way, he had quirks and mannerisms, something that could not ever be programmed into a machine. It was not just lifelike, it was truly natural, and that could be only because his mind had adapted enough to consider his artificial body the real one, and this included translating the inputs from whatever sensors were scattered on his body into sensations.  
So, when she pressed her breasts against him just so, he didn't think about levels of pressure or temperature, but about warmth and softness. Consciously he probably realised it was not the same thing as true feeling, but he was responding to it readily enough.  
"That would leave you with few options, witch..." he gasped, clenching his fists at his sides.

Through the Force Asajj could feel the turmoil of his mind, how hungry he was for any kind of feeling, how much his loneliness was weighing on him. He yearned for company, for connection, but he was alone, trapped in between worlds.  
It was a truism among Force-users that most normal people couldn't be bothered to actually see what was in front of their eyes, and judged everything according to superficial appearances. Asajj had found that this applied to many Forceful as well.  
Almost everybody in the CIS leadership looked at Grievous and could not see beyond the mechanical exterior. They saw just a more complicated, more temperamental droid: an inferior, however useful.  
But no droid could banter with you, or mourn a lost memory, or be insufferably arrogant and pig-headed.  
Droids did not look up at you with wide golden eyes as if you were all their hopes and fears all rolled in one, and their emotions didn't shine so very bright in the Force that they could blot out the sun.  
He probably didn't realise it, but now he was giving her the keys to get a true hold on him, to control him, after a fashion. If she truly wanted it and played her cards well and thinking in the long term, she could bind him to her, effortlessly recruiting a powerful ally to her cause. She doubted that he would complain, if it happened. It was tempting, even though she didn't need a man to do her job.

"Well, General, if you were a bit more organic, I'd quite happily fuck you..." she purred, low and throaty, rocking her hips just so against his. Her heart was pounding and she gaspedd softly at the friction. She had not expected to feel aroused too, but her little game of seduction was affecting her as well.  
His eyes fluttered close for a moment and his hands twitched. "What makes you think I'd agree?..." he rasped, almost breathless.  
Asajj smiled seductively. "Have a think, General..." she breathed, close enough to him that he could probably feel the warmth of her breath on his face.  
"I know you watch me, and I think you like what you see. - she said, rocking her hips again slowly, over and over - We are quite a match on the battlefield. Don't you wonder if we would be quite as well matched in other ways?" she added, almost purring, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Now she realised that maybe she had always felt horny after fighting with him not just because she liked fighting, but mostly because she liked fighting against him.  
He shuddered and arched against the wall at his back. His control, such as it was, was fraying fast.  
"I even remind you of a lost love... Can you truly tell me that if the bloodlust was upon you, you would be able to say no to me?" she asked finally, tracing her tongue lightly along his surrogate ear as she rocked against him once more.

She felt his control snap as his need burned hot as a furnace. He thrust his hips upwards, matching her movements, and guided her with his hands on her waist.  
"You are not her. You can never be her." he gasped between thrusts, possibly more to convince himself than to complain.  
"No. I am me." Asajj replied, bracing herself on his shoulders to be able to ride him harder.  
"You are an infuriating, cruel, insolent woman." he growled heatedly.  
"And you still want me." Asajj purred, taking one of his hands and guiding it to her breasts.  
Grievous groaned wordlessly, closing his eyes in bliss. "Yes, oh yes... I want you so bad..." he gasped.  
He kneaded her breasts almost reverently, even though there was fire in his eyes as he opened them again to lock stares with her. His hands started roaming all over her hungrily, but oddly gently and his heart beat faster and faster.  
"I'd fuck you raw, if I could. - he growled - I'd make you beg for me to stop."  
Asajj moaned and writhed on top of him. She would have liked it very, very much: she was sure it would have been a thing to remember. It was a pity that some things were out of their reach.

Asajj could feel how desperate he was for more, and her own desperation was rising and rising to match his. They were well-matched even in this, apparently, she thought with a smile. That sense of connectedness was starting to return, letting her feel glimpses of what he was feeling. She surmised that it must be an effect of her Force, which she hadn't actually let go of yet, but this sort of thing had never happened to her with any other lover. Whatever the cause, she was fully determined to explore its possibilities.  
She could sense that her partner was nearly overwhelmed by what he was feeling, and yet a dark cloud was hovering over his thoughts. He worried that he wouldn't be enough for her, that she would reject and humiliate him because of this. He feared that bliss would turn into shame and he would be left even more alone than when it started.  
In his eyes, wild and unfocused, she could see the silent plead for her to make him feel whole again, if only just for a moment, but also the knowledge that it wouldn't be possible.  
It was heartwrenching.

Asajj rubbed her cheek gently against his mask in the closest approximation to a kiss she could think of.  
She couldn't explain to herself why she cared about what he was feeling, but she realised that she did, to a certain extent, and not just because having so much control over him was giving her the biggest rush of her life.  
She could feel his presence pressing against her like the tide against a sea wall. It was not as strong as that of a Forceful, but it was still heavy with the strength of his personality, and his determination and his terrible, terrible need.  
He wanted her so desperately. No other man had ever wanted her so much.

"Relax, let it happen. Let yourself feel. We have time..." she whispered.  
He nodded and closed his eyes, willing himself to relax, but she could tell he was still tense as steel wire and trying so hard. Too hard maybe.  
Asajj took a deep breath and tore down her mind shields, leaving herself open and vulnerable.  
She knew her feelings must be leaking all over him, so that he could read them even without the help of the Force. Even still fully clothed, she was revealing more of herself to him than she had ever done with a man. It was scary, but at the same time it made her feel even more wanton and turned up.  
"See how you make me feel? It is good. Stop worrying and join me." she said, rubbing her face over his again, gently but with intent. This time the connection allowed him to know that it was meant as a kiss. He made a soft keening sound and responded in kind, holding her close almost tenderly.  
"Yes... Just like this..." she whispered. Grievous interrupted the kiss just enough to look into her eyes. For a moment there was doubt within him, even fear, but it was burnt to ashes in an instant by his burning desire and steely determination. She could feel a slight shift in the Force, and then he tore his own defences down and met her halfway. The connection clicked in place, and suddenly they were both burning so bright.  
She was drowning in him, and he in her, and it felt so undescribably good. Whatever one of them felt, the other also felt, and it rebounded, intensified and unified like light in the amplification loop of a lightsaber.  
Asajj ground herself on him as he thrust desperately and they both gasped in shared pleasure, getting closer and closer to the brink.  
She touched and caressed him wherever she could reach, and he shuddered, lost in the illusion of being flesh again. She thought that would be it, that they would ride this wave of sensation to its culmination, when his left hand closed around her right wrist, stilling her hand.  
Asajj opened her eyes and frowned, looking at him questioningly.  
Gently, he guided her hand to the ragged hole in his chest and let go of her wrist.  
"Please..." he rasped, frantic with desire.  
Asajj held his pleading gaze for a moment and nodded, rubbing her face against his tenderly. "Try not to scream, or the lads will hear us next door..." she purred.  
Grievous let a shuddering sigh of contentment escape him and moved his hands back to her waist and backside, helping her move on top of him again and again, and the pleasure built upwards and upwards, until she felt like they could not contain it anymore and let her hand slide against that innermost part of him with a gentle touch.  
A jolt of unbelievable pleasure coursed through them both, sending them right over the edge into the white, blinding light.  
She bit her lower lip nearly bloody to prevent herself from screaming in extasy. Her back arched and her eyes fluttered closed as she nearly blacked out with the strength of their combined pleasure. Distantly she heard the growl of release he could not quite contain as they peaked in perfect synchrony.  
It felt perfect.

The throbbing pain from her mangled leg was slowly seeping through the pleasant drowsiness of the afterglow and the barrier of the drugs.  
Asajj Ventress determined that she would ignore it for as long as humanly possible. She wasn't exactly comfortable, but she was feeling too relaxed, satisfied, and peaceful to be bothered to stir.  
And the warmth... it was so wonderful to feel warm again.  
Asajj frowned at the odd notion, then realised that she had not pulled her shields back up again, and was still picking up on what her partner was feeling. It was odd, but not bad, and she didn't bother shielding up again just yet. She imagined that there would hardly be another opportunity to do so, and was determined to enjoy the experience to the end.  
She gently lay a hand on Grievous' mask, lazily tracing its contours, and he nuzzled against it, drunk with pleasure and sensation.  
It felt so good... She would have never imagined that banging him would have been so strange, so unlike anything else, but at the same time so intense and satisfying.

Grievous lightly caressed the back of her bald head, causing her skin to erupt in goosebumps. Asajj moaned softly and his cold, metal fingers slid along her jawline, skimming feather-light over her lips and making her shudder once again.  
Her tongue quickly darted out and caught the tip of a retreating finger. Asajj tasted metal and was rewarded by a startled intake of breath. A ripple of satisfaction passed through her. She wished she had time to figure out how many different reactions she could coax out of him. She liked her men vocal and responsive.  
His hand moved back to her jawline, lightly tickling her, then suddenly her chin was caught in a firm but still gentle grip and she was lead to look up into a pair of hooded golden eyes.  
"Why?" Grievous asked.  
"Why what?" she replied.  
"Why did you do this? All of this." he continued, gesturing widely with his free hand.  
"Why do these things usually happen?" she retorted playfully. He didn't seem particularly amused or distracted.  
"What do you want from me, witch?" he asked instead, sounding sad and disappointed, of all things.  
"I think I have already had everything I wanted from you. And in spades..." she purred, winking significantly, but this answer didn't seem to satisfy him either.  
Asajj concentrated on the wavering connection between them. She could feel his doubt and his fear that this unexpected wonder would turn to more pain, that it had been just a ploy, only pretence. Now that the rush was fading, he started thinking that she must have had some ulterior motive for banging him. It couldn't have been just because of him. It just couldn't. There was nothing left in him that could make a woman want him for himself.  
He was feeling used and worthless, and this was making his anger bubble up under the surface, like a pool of lava.  
If it hadn't been because of his issues, she would have taken offense at having the old cliché of the woman shagging her way to power thrust upon her.  
"Look, General, it's not like you are my superior and I'm trying to shag my way into some sort of advantage. - she said in a very practical fashion - You do your stuff, I do mine, we occasionally work together because we have to. What could I get from you that I couldn't conquer on my own?" she asked.  
"The truth is, you were going to freak out, and I tried to distract you. Then I got curious, I wanted to try. But basically I banged you because I felt like it. - she continued, shrugging nonchalantly - And why not? I wanted it, you wanted it, and we're both consenting and unattached adults. There is not a single reason why we shouldn't have done it." she argued calmly, but he still looked unconvinced, even if less angry than before.  
"There is nothing wrong with what we've done, General. - she added softly, caressing his mask again with all the tenderness she could muster - We had fun and we felt good. Don't complicate something simple."  
Grievous let go of her chin and looked at her wistfully. "You lie so beautifully, witch..." he sighed. He wanted so hard to believe her that it nearly hurt. It was left unsaid, but she heard it nonetheless.  
"I'm not lying to you. - she whispered, looking straight back at him - It did feel good and you know it. You were there with me, in me..." she added, rubbing her face against his suggestively, then her nerve failed and she couldn't say the rest out loud.  
_"You felt me peak, and it was so strong that I saw stars, and it was because of you... And I know you came so hard that your heart nearly stuttered, and it felt so good... You felt so good..._" she thought as loud as she dared, hoping that he would be able to catch it. And catch it he did, closing his eyes and hissing in pleasure at the mere memory.  
Asajj smiled. "I've had fully organic lovers that didn't feel half as good as you did, you know? - she revealed - I only regret that I didn't get to hear you scream... Maybe next time..." she whispered.  
"N-next time?!" Grievous stammered with an almost comical look of astonishment.  
Asajj shrugged again. "Yes, why not? A less public place, fewer wounds... Sounds appealing, doesn't it?" she offered, smiling suggestively. She was sure it would be good.

Grievous shook his head and tapped a fist against the floor. "Stop it witch. Stop talking like this! - he pleaded more than ordered - Your words... They feel like the truth, but it can't be. How could you accept... this?" he asked, spreading his arms to the sides, highlighting how mechanical he was, how unnatural.  
"I accept what you are, General. I did not know you before, so I have nothing to compare you to. - she replied calmly and sincerely - I see who you are now, and I'm fine with it. Well, when you are not deliberately being an asshole... Why are you trying to pick at something that is working? You are overthinking all the situation. If you ever were married, I hope you didn't question your wife like that everytime you had sex with her..." she teased.  
Grievous snorted and shook his head again. "Alright. I desist. So are we... colleagues with benefits, as they say?" he asked, sounding slightly amused.  
Asajj smiled and winked. " You're so old-fashioned... We're fuck-buddies. I like the sound of it better." she replied playfully.  
"You are a such a sweet-talker, witch..." he commented in the same tone and his eyes crinkled at the corners, in what, Asajj realised, had to be his version of a smile.  
She had never seen him smile before, not like that, without murderous intent but just because he was happy.  
It was so unlike him, but somehow it looked... just right. It made him look young and almost beautiful.  
Later she would tell herself that it was just because of the incipient fever and of the endorphines still flooding her system, but as he hesitantly rubbed his masked face against hers, she could not repress the impulse to hold it in her hands for a moment and deposit a feather-light kiss at the corner of one smiling, golden eye.

Grievous was struck speechless, and before he could decide whether to be pleased or furious with her, Asajj's wounded leg decided to seize up. She cried out in pain.  
"I'm sorry, I need off." she gasped, trying to find a way to change position without putting too much strain on it.  
"What's wrong, witch? It's your leg, isn't it?" Grievous asked, sounding worried and looking like he did not know what to do.  
Asajj nodded. "It hurts like hell." she admitted.  
She tried to support herself on his shoulders and lift herself off, but her head started spinning like crazy and she lost her balance, crashing back down against his chest.  
"Damn it!" Asajj cursed, fighting against a wave of nausea.  
"You're not well." Grievous commented gravely and, before she could regain her composure enough to reply, he had wrapped his hands around her waist again and lifted her up as if she didn't weigh anything, rearranging her so that she was sitting across his lap.  
"Hey! Why did you do that?!" Asajj protested weakly, feeling vaguely humiliated, but mostly nauseated.  
"You had to take your weigth off that leg and you need to rest. - Grievous replied - I think this is marginally more comfortable than lying on the ground."  
"I wouldn't be so sure... You're quite hard and pointy." she teased, but she was truly bone-weary, so she rested her head against his shoulder and curled up a bit. It wasn't too bad actually.  
Grievous wrapped his arms around her. "Try not to drool, please." he warned. He was trying to sound gruff and annoyed, but she sensed he was feeling oddly pleased about the situation instead. She was quite sure it had something to do with her warmth, but also with sheer male pride.  
As much as it hurt her independence, she couldn't deny that it felt good to be held like that. It made her feel cherished. She could hear his heart beat strong and steady. It was surprisingly relaxing.

"Don't get strange ideas in that crazy head if yours, understood? There is nothing to read into this. - she mumbled sleepily, trying to clarify her position - I am only letting you get all cuddly because I am wrecked. I'm going to start calling you sweethart or darling or anything like that." she added.  
The sound he made could have been a bout of coughing or a small laugh.  
"I understand. And I agree, no pet names. It would be undignified for both of us." he added dryly, but still with a hint of laughter.  
Asajj nodded. "But I still get to call you clanker boy." she added.  
Grievous nodded. "It's an insult, not a pet name, so I guess it's acceptable. - he argued - And I can still call you witch, because..."  
"If you are going for some pick-up line like 'because you are charming' I am going to be very disappointed" she interrupted him, casting a playful glance at him.  
Grievous laughed again. "I was going to say that it would be unfair otherwise. You should get some rest, you are not talking any sense." he advised almost gently.  
Asajj tried to think of a biting riposte, but it felt too hard even just to string a coherent sentence.  
She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and promptly slipped into a deep sleep.


	3. What is Lost, What is Left

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original Star Wars characters. I do own the OCs, though. I do not make a £ from this.**

Warnings: semi-graphic description of violence, character deaths, implied cross-species relationships.

Grievous might seem a bit OOC here, but I'm trying to show him reverting to his old, pre-accident self.

Many thanks to Celgress, DarthPain224 and Sindrak for their feedback. Sorry I cannot reply to your questions, but I don't want to give away bits of the story.

Flame all you want, I'm fireproof.

* * *

She was dreaming of the desert on Rattatak.  
The air was parched and dusty and the ground so hot that it burned the soles of her feet through her boots...  
_No, it was a jungle, it was hot but humid and she was barefoot, enjoying the feeling of the rich forest loam under her soles and between her toes, the smells of the plantlife all around her and the feel of the wind on her skin..._  
Her fallen master Ky Narec, the man who had rescued when her parents had been killed, and raised her, and taught her to fight, was with her...  
_No it was a tallish man with scaly brown skin, carrying a long rifle. He was dressed in a bone-white mask, a loincloth, and little else. It was Grievous' mask, she realised dimly, or a very close version of it, but the eyes that peeked out were orange rather than golden..._  
Her master started talking to her, sounding just like a loving father, even though he wasn't.  
_The strange man spoke with the same language he was speaking was liquid and songlike, full of strange sounds that had no place in Basic. It was alien, but at the same time it felt like home._

She was running among the rocks...  
_the trees..._  
... as fast as her legs could carry her. She felt good and carefree, even though she knew that she would have to return to her duties soon. Running like that, however, was thirsty business and soon she paused at a pond...  
_A stream..._  
The still water reflected her image like a mirror. She looked like she had when she was sixteen, maybe seventeen, her face still fresh and her expression still soft, her skin pristine and unmarked by tattoos, like a canvas waiting for the first brushstroke.  
Then suddenly the surface of the pond rippled, showing her a completely different image.  
_It was a young man, or rather a boy, of maybe fifteen, lanky and sinewy like he had not finished growing yet, set against a backdrop of dark green foliage. His skin was scaly and red-brown like dried blood, and he had a rifle slung around his back, like the man from before. The boy wore a white headband from which locks of inky black hair peeked out. His face was covered with a mask of carved wood. Eyes of liquid gold looked back at her from the pond, wide with amazement._

A scream tore her from the image in the water and she started running again in its direction...  
_**No, they both started running. They ran as if their own lives or something even more important were at stake. They ran until their lungs burned and they could taste blood at the back of their mouths...**_  
She arrived at the rock-carved house she shared with her master...  
_He arrived at the hut in the clearing where he lived with his father..._  
Weequay raiders were upon him, yelling curses as her master danced among them, blue lightsaber flashing...  
_Giant insects with huge pincers crowded him, chirping and chattering. He fought valiantly, handgun in one hand and sword in the other..._  
**_...but the enemies were too many and they were getting tired._**  
She activated her lightsaber and waded in the fight, cutting two of them down before they even realised her presence, then cut a bloody path among the rest, trying to get to her master's aid...  
_He unholstered his guns and started firing with abandon, uncaring about conserving his ammunition for another fight. His bullets hit their marks, sending bits of bug and ichor flying all around. Ducking and weaving his way through the melee, he shot his way closer and closer to his father..._  
**_... they fought like demons, like they had never fought before, determined to protect the people they loved, unmindful of wounds, fatigue and pain..._**  
... but her master was shot in the back by one of the raiders...  
_... and his father was cut down by huge pincers..._  
**_... and the world stopped turning for a long, long moment, and they couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't feel, as if their hearts had been carved out and their chests had been left hollow and empty..._**  
... and she was shot down too. A fiery flower of pain blossomed in her chest and her knees buckled, sending her sprawling to the rocky ground...  
_... and he was caught in the back by a hooked leg-spike. He turned around to shoot his aggressor, only to be brought low by a blow to the head that knocked him unconscious and face-down on the ground..._  
... the surviving Weequay left, laughing and complimenting each other for their deed...  
_... and the Huk retreated, composite eyes glittering unmerciful under the sun..._  
**_... they crawled..._**  
... to her master...  
_... to his father..._  
**_... gasping and whimpering in pain from their wounds, but, as they knelt next to their loved ones and cradled them uselessly with bloodstained hands, it was not physical pain that made them cry bitter tears. It was the hollowness inside of them, the knowledge that their loved ones would never talk to them, that they would never see them smile again. Now they were really and truly on their own, with no one to love them unconditionally, no one to protect them. They couldn't save the people they loved, but slowly desperation turned to anger and hate, giving them strength. They could still avenge them, make the bastards pay their deaths a hundred times, a thousand times over..._**  
She picked her master's saber from the dust and attached it to her belt next to her own. She would slay them with it, honouring his teachings and his memory...  
_He picked up his fathers' mask with bloodstained hands and left his own wooden one fall to the ground. It would be the last thing they saw when they died, and they would realise why he was slaughtering them..._  
**_Their childhood, such as it had been, was over_****.**

Asajj awoke suddenly, tear-stained eyes shooting open in the murky penumbra. Strong arms held her down as she struggled for a moment, still caught up in the dream and unknowing of where she was.  
"Calm down, it was just a dream, only a dream..." a deep and raspy synthetic voice said, somewhere over her head.  
Asajj tried to focus and remember where she was.  
Grey, concrete walls and low light, and the cloying smell of fruit. The shots of small-caliber blaster guns resounded relatively close by.  
Her right leg sent jolts of pain up into her spine, throbbing in time with her heartbeat, and her head felt like it was full of fluff and at the same time as heavy as lead.  
She forced herself to stop struggling against the iron grip that held her and looked up, straight into concerned golden eyes.

"General... What happened?" she slurred, finally, recalling the battle and everything that happened afterwards.  
"I don't know... You fell asleep." he replied.  
Asajj blinked a few times, trying to sort her thoughts out.  
"In my dream... You were in it." she managed. He had been young, and whole, and she had felt his loss mirror her own almost uncannily.  
Grievous nodded gravely.  
"I thought you didn't ever sleep." she objected.  
"Never since they made me into this. Not until today." he admitted.  
"Am I that boring?" she joked, shoving the dream away. She couldn't afford to think of her master. Not now.  
Grievous laughed quietly. "No, you're that good..." he replied suggestively.  
He paused for a long moment, considering her with fondness and wonder. "It seems that you are making me rediscover many things that I believed lost." he said softly.  
Asajj averted her eyes, almost awed by the weight of his gaze. "Glad of having helped." she replied, mumbling the words against his chest.  
"I need to go, now. I don't know how long we've been sleeping, but the attack has started and lads are bound to need some guidance." Grievous continued, almost apologetic.  
She tried to nod, but was nearly overcome by a bout of nausea. Why did she feel so tired if she had just woken up? Why did everything ache and did her skin feel like it was on fire?  
"What is wrong with me?" she whispered, frowning.  
"You've got a fever, witch. You're burning up." he replied, laying a cold, metal hand on her brow.  
Groaning in pleasure, Asajj leaned into his touch.  
"Guess thermal sensors are useful sometimes..." she teased, grabbing hold of his wrist to prevent him from taking his hand away.  
"I don't need sensors to know this. I'm Kaleesh, we can sense heat." he replied, sounding rather offended, but he didn't try to take his hand away.  
"Like snakes..." she said, recalling from the dream that he had been some sort of lizard-person before.  
"Like snakes." Grievous confirmed.  
"How does it feel? Can you see it? Or smell it? Or what?" she asked, guiding his cool hand down to the back of her neck.  
Grievous lowered his head until his mask nearly touched her brow. "It's difficult to explain. It's a bit like seeing a smell. - he explained quietly -You're bright with fever at the moment, witch."  
"My leg must have gotten infected." she rasped, trying to plaster herself against the cool plates of his armour to get some relief.  
"Wounds of that sort often do, especially in these climates. - he said, hovering closer and closer, as if he wanted to kiss her - Are you going to be alright if I leave you here for a while? Do you want me to send Nyto over?" he asked then, gently laying his masked cheek against hers.  
Asajj tried with limited success to shake her head. "Leave Nyto be. I'll be fine. I'm sure I'll be fine if I sleep a bit more." she whispered.  
Grievous sighed and picked her up gently, carrying her in his arms to the improvised pallet Nyto had laid out for her. He knelt to the floor and laid her down gently and attentively. She didn't protest. It was nice to be handled so carefully, like something precious. Ever since the death of her master, no one had taken care of her like that. She knew that she didn't need it, but deep down she still wanted it. It was good to know that someone would be there for you.  
"Get some rest, witch. We'll all be next door." Grievous tried to reassure her. She nodded, shivering slightly. Grievous sighed and took off his tattered, heavy cloak, laying it down on her.  
Asajj nodded in thanks and snuggled gratefully into it, curling up onto her side to conserve heat. The cloak smelled like blood and explosives and faintly like metal, but it was soft and warm. Grievous looked down at her with wonder and an odd, hungry intensity, as if he was trying to engrave the scene in his mind. She looked back at him, wondering why she felt the impulse to hug him, the needy bastard.  
A scream, coming from the front room, interrupted their contemplations.  
"The lads!" Asajj mumbled  
"I have to go. Try to get some rest." Grievous instructed, getting back to his feet.  
"Will do. Try not to get shot, alright?" she mumbled, barely intelligibly, as he picked up a stray piece of tarpaulin and sprinted away to rejoin the troops. Things were getting too interesting to be put to an end already.

Pleasant memories, new worries and wonder were instantly filed away as Grievous entered the front room where his men were fighting.  
One of the lads was on the floor, thrashing and screaming, a hand reduced to pulp by what appeared to have been an explosion. Blueish blood was pumping from severed vessels and the medic, Nyto something or other, was having a hard time tying a tourniquet around his arm while the lad went into hysterics.  
A couple of other Gunners appeared to have sustained minor injuries from the shrapnel of the explosion. The building was under fire from the ground and stray blaster bolts rained through the windows, but the situation still looked under control.  
Grievous ignored the complaints of the integrity sensors and the residual pain in his chest and ran to the victim's position, pinning him down.  
"Calm down, lad!" he yelled, hoping to snap him out of his fit.  
"It hurts! It hurts so much!" the boy screamed.  
Grievous nodded sympathetically.  
"I know, I know..." he said, and he did. Burns and amputations hurt more than any other wound, but he couldn't afford to think about it just now.  
"It's on!" Nyto exclaimed, but Grievous didn't let go of the lad.  
"Have you got any painkillers?" he asked the first-aider.  
"Yessir!" Nyto replied, appearing in his field of vision.  
"Then pump him full. - he instructed - That needs to go." he added, jerking his head towards the ruins of the Gunner's hand.  
"I-I don't have a bone saw!" Nyto replied, sounding distinctively panicky and nearly fumbling with the vial of painkiller and the syringe.  
Grievous turned towards him with a baleful expression. "What sort of medical officer doesn't have a bloody bone saw?!" he snapped.  
"Well, I'm no bloody medical officer! They didn't assign one to us! - Nyto yelled back showing a remarkable lack of fear - I picked up some training and stole some kit, but I couldn't find a fucking bone saw!" he explained, jabbing the syringe full of painkillers into the wounded Gunner's upper arm almost vindictively. The boy slumped nearly immediately. It must have been strong stuff.  
"What the...?! - Grievous started, but the lack of proper medical officers wasn't the most urgent point - Never mind. Grab the plain metal saber from my belt. That will do the trick."  
Nyto nodded decisively and did as instructed. He held the hilt upright and very carefully. Grievous belatedly realised that the lad had actually brushed his hand against him while collecting the blade. He had barely noticed, caught up in the urgency of the situation.  
"Press the button." he instructed. Nyto activated the saber and stared at it in wonder as the blade boiled out into a shaft of green energy.  
"Press it again. You don't want it this long." Grievous added, amused by Nyto's reaction. The boy obeyed and the saber shortened. The short blade was seeing a lot of action, lately.  
"Be careful. The weight is all in the hilt." he warned.  
"It's very light." Nyto commented thoughtfully.  
"Yes it is. A single slice will do. Straight through and into the floor, OK?" Grievous explained.  
"It's not my first amputation, sir." the lad replied, quite piqued.  
At the word, the wounded and sedated Gunner revived instantly and started thrashing with renewed vigour. Grievous had been paying him little attention for a moment, and the lad nearly broke free of his hold in sheer desperation. "Please, no! Don't take my arm off! Please!" he screamed, tears streaming from his eyes.  
Nyto hesitated, actually deactivating the blade in case the situation got out of hand.  
"Do you need help, sir?" someone yelled from the rest of the room.  
"It's all under control!" Grievous replied over his shoulder, splitting his arms to have a better grip on the thrashing Gunner.  
"Listen to me, lad! Listen! - he shouted, getting the Gunner's attention for a moment - Your hand is already gone. If you leave it like that, it will only get infected. You will die."  
The lad closed his eyes and shook his head convulsively. "I don't want to die!" he sobbed.  
"What is your name, soldier?" Grievous asked, wondering why he was being so gentle with the lad. Well, why shouldn't he, he asked himself a moment afterwards. Didn't he do this for his men, back home? The Gunners were not Kaleesh, but they were his nonetheless.  
"Tranh. I am Tranh Deko." the Gunner sobbed.  
"Listen, Tranh, we're not going to let you die. - Grievous said - Let Nyto help you. It is going to be better, once it's done."  
Tranh nodded weakly, tears streaming out of his eyes, and forced himself to stop struggling.  
The blade hummed back to life. Tranh whimpered and instinctively tried to turn his face towards the noise.  
Grievous let go of him with one hand and forced his gaze away.  
"Don't. Look at me. It's going to be fine." he instructed.  
Tranh nodded meekly and kept his eyes trained on Grievous, tensing up to brace for the fall of the blade.  
Out of the corner of his eye, Grievous saw the blade arcing down in a dazzling green curve. The Gunner's flesh sizzled and Tranh let a harsh cry escape his lips and then it was over.  
Nyto deactivated the saber and undid the now-useless tourniquet.  
Tranh slumped down in pain and exhaustion, and Grievous let go of him."You've been a brave lad." he said, and it sounded natural.  
This was how a warleader treated his warriors. It was as if he was falling back to a familiar pattern that he had somehow forgotten out of dealing only with droids and cowards.

"That went smoothly. - Nyto commented, handing the saber back to him with a bow and breaking him out of his reflections - Thank you for the help, sir." he added with a smile.  
Grievous shrugged awkwardly. He was not used to be thanked sincerely anymore.  
"It was nothing." he said.  
Nyto knelt by Tranh and manged to hoist him up over his shoulder in a fireman's grip.  
"Come on, brother. Let's get you to somewhere more comfortable." he exhorted, but Tranh was mostly unresponsive.  
"Private, since are you going that way anyway, have a look at Commander Ventress. - Grievous instructed - She was starting to come down with a fever."  
Nyto nodded. "I don't have any antibiotics, they always keep them under lock and key, but I'll see what I can do." he replied, then staggered away, swaying under the weight of his taller comrade.

Medical emergency sorted, Grievous turned his full attention to the ongoing fight. First of all, he needed a weapon, but that was quickly sorted by grabbing one of the spare rifles stacked on the floor by the door.  
"Private Cato!" he called out, then. Several grey-green faces turned towards him.  
Grievous repressed a bout of irritation and quickly dashed to the position of the one he already considered the unofficial leader of the squad. What the hell did the others had to gape, was anyone's guess.  
"Welcome back, sir!" the lad saluted, shooting a precise, three-bolt spray with his semi-automatic blaster and felling a too-daring Naqdaan drone. It was a neat trick.  
"Report, Private. What happened to Private Deko?" Grievous inquired.  
Private Cato shrugged. "A faulty blaster cartridge, I reckon. - he replied - Tranh slotted a new one in, took his first shot and off went his hand..."  
"Has it ever happened before?" Grievous asked, as he started to return fire as well.  
"Explosions? No, not before today. - the Gunner replied thoughtfully - Faults? Plenty, especially with the semis and especially since they changed supplier. The new cartridges are mighty dodgy." he added with a fatalistic shrug.  
Grievous cursed. "And why did they have to change supplier?" he asked.  
Garu shrugged again. "The new stuff is less expensive."  
Bloody Feds, Grievous thought. How could they be so ready to put the safety of the troops in jeopardy for some penny-pinching? He wondered if that had been a decision that affected only Neimoidian troops, or if that idiotic decision had been hidden in the piles of paperwork he occasionally had to sign and which he read very seldom. He would have to dig into that, as soon as he got back to base.  
"Do you have any of the old cartridges left?" he asked.  
Garu nodded. "I've told the lads to use those first, but Tranh must have gotten them mixed up. Shit happens, I suppose. Thankfully, he always shot one-handed, the show-off..." he commented wistfully.  
"He's going to be alright. - Grievous said, even if he didn't know exactly why he felt like he should reassure the Gunner - Nyto did a good job of it, even if he is not a true medical officer. Why don't you have one, by the way?"  
Garu shrugged again. "We are Unclaimed. I bet they judged we weren't worth the effort." he replied.  
"Why would they?" Grievous asked, failing to understand.  
"Because we are Unclaimed. I think the closest equivalent in other cultures is orphans. But being Unclaimed is worse. Everyone assumes that you have something wrong, that you are worthless." Garu explained, taking another shot.  
"And you are all... Unclaimed? The whole squadron?" Grievous inquired.  
Garu nodded. "Yessir. All of us."  
"And how did you get into the Gunners? Isn't it an elite corps?" Grievous asked, shooting down another bug.  
"By trying really hard and not accepting no for an answer. - Garu replied - They've never sent us on an actual mission before, though. And even now, they sent us only to spite Tok Ashel."  
Grievous mulled the answer over in his head. "So Tok Ashel was in disgrace?" he asked.  
Garu shook his head. "More of an inconvenient upstart that needed a dressing-down. - he explained - He wanted to make an impression with this mission."  
"I suppose he did make it. In blood, somewhere in the sand out there." Grievous commented ungraciously.

Garu burst out laughing. "Gruesome, but true." he commented.  
"I think you lads are doing fine, private Cato." Grievous added.  
Garu beamed in pride. "Really, sir? This is... This is worth all shit we had to endure until now, you know? - he gushed, inordinately happy about such sparing praise - And please sir, for practicality's sake, call us with our given names. Half of us are Catos here. We take our surnames from the planet we were born on." he explained.  
That surely put the earlier incident in perspective, Grievous thought.  
"Right. Garu it will be, then." Grievous acquiesced.  
Garu beamed again but didn't say anything, turning his face towards the window. Grievous followed his example.

There were quite a lot of Naqdaan soldiers creeping among the grass in the middle distance. Luckily the road passing just in front of the building was a pretty decent danger zone, free of all cover. Occasionally an over-excited Naqdaan squad would make a dash for it, but they were easy pickings.  
Grievous hoped they didn't find the resolve to attack en masse before their pickup was scheduled to arrive. He judged that they could destroy them by sheer numbers alone. If only they had some artillery or at least a couple of machine - guns...  
"How long to pickup?" he asked.  
"A little over two hours and a half. You were out for just over an hour, sir." Garu replied.  
Grievous nodded in thanks.

Just over an hour. So little time, so much had changed... It was as if reality had subtly shifted its axis and everything suddenly looked different, new, even himself. He had been shown that his life could be... normal? No, not normal, never again. It would always and inevitably be different, but it could still be full and pleasant in its way.  
He could still be with the woman he desired and make her feel good.  
He could still inspire his soldiers and have their spontaneous respect.  
And he couldn't even begin to think about how he and the witch had clicked together, both on the battlefield and afterwards... how for a moment they had been like one... It had been... perfect.  
There was more to his life than endless anger and vigil. He hadn't realised until now.  
But now he knew. Maybe he should stop lamenting what he had lost and concentrate on what he had left.

"Sorry for leaving you high and dry right at the start of the attack." he told Garu, feeling awkward and unused to the situation. He had not apologised to anyone in a long time.  
Garu shrugged. "You needed rest, sir. Good thing Commander Ventress managed to help you. - he said - That's a big hole, though..." he added, eyes wide, after casting a quick sidelong glance at his side.  
Grievous shrugged. "They'll fix me up once we're back to a CIS base. For now it should be alright." he said and reached out for the piece of tarpaulin he had picked up in the other room. He quickly wrapped it around his chest, looped it over his right shoulder and tied it firmly with a knot. That should prevent the Naqdaans from realising how much of a good target he was offering, and would also keep the breeze at bay. He hated being colder than usual.  
"Oh, here they come again..." Garu commented.

A score of Naqdaan footsoldiers detached from the main body of the troops, carrying what looked like plates of hammered metal in their hands. They advanced slowly, in a compact formation, keeping the plates angled towards the incoming fire from the building. The blaster bolts mostly ricocheted without harm.  
"Hold your fire! We need to spare ammunition!" Grievous yelled. The Gunners promptly ceased firing.  
"Do we have any grenades left?" he asked Garu. He didn't usually rely so much on his aides, but in this case, he was still making it up as he went, without prior knowledge of his troops and the available equipment.  
"Better than that." Garu replied, then switched his wrist comm on.  
"Van, brother mine, have you seen who has come out to play?" he asked.  
"'Course I did, bro. Can I have a go?" they asked from the other side.  
Garu looked a question to his superior, who hadn't really understood what was going on, but decided to go with the flow and nodded.  
"By all means, brother!" Garu exclaimed.  
The conversation was cut. For a moment nothing happened, then a rocket flashed through the open space between the building and the incoming Naqdaans, smashing onto the formation with a resounding explosion. The formation was stopped and nearly blasted off the face of the planet. Pieces of bent metal and mangled body parts were all that was left of it.  
The Gunners saluted the shot with a chorus of catcalls, exclamations and laughter.  
"Van is the one with the stolen RPG, right?" Grievous asked.  
Garu nodded.  
"Is he really your brother?" Grievous inquired again.  
"Same litter. As close as twins. - the lad replied proudly - Leth, there, is the last of us. We also have a sister, but she didn't enlist."  
Grievous followed the pointing hand of the Gunner and saw a lad who looked like a younger and more cheerful version of Viceroy Nute Gunray. He turned back to Garu with a questioning look. Garu shrugged and looked slightly embarrassed. "It is a long story." he said.  
"Later, then. When we are out of here." Grievous conceded. The Gunner nodded. "Yessir!" he exclaimed.  
"Good, now brief me about the state of the squad." Grievous ordered.  
The lad beamed again, seemingly thrilled, and started talking concisely and precisely. Maybe he didn't know the correct forms and procedures, but there was a lot of untapped talent in him.  
"I'll make an officer out of you, Private Garu Cato..." Grievous silently vowed.

For about an hour, nothing major happened at the juice factory. There were a few more desultory assault attempts from groups of Naqdaan footsoldiers, and brief exchanges of fire, but overall the situation seemed quiet.  
Maybe the Naqdaan thought that they had them cornered and trapped, so that they could take their time with them. Or maybe they were just biding their time while they organised a more serious attempt. His instincts told Grievous that the second scenario was the most likely. The buggers had already demonstrated enough deviousness by rigging the whole beach as a trap, and he hadn't survived thirty-odd years of fighting by being hopeful and optimistic.  
Preparation was the key.

It was time to have a better look at his warriors.

Upstairs, the snipers' unofficial leader was a girl of maybe eighteen called Auray. She looked slightly like a Duros, with her blueish-green skin, and was probably beautiful by Neimoidian standards, but most importantly she was level-headed and organised, if still a bit wet behind the ears.  
And by the gods, the girl could shoot! She had been the one to steal his kill at the hangar, and even during his brief inspection he saw her bag a couple of very neat kills. Grievous exchanged a few words with each of the snipers, trying to commit their names and their young, noseless faces to memory.  
The Gunners reacted to this like it was lifeday coming too soon. He praised their conduct and performance in the previous engagements of the day, and he could see their faces lighting up in pleasure and pride.  
They needed someone to give them purpose and a sense of belonging.  
He could be that person. He could take them under his command, and transform those abandoned children into the most feared élite force of the CIS.  
Taking a deep breath Grievous forced himself to focus on the present. They needed to survive the next hour and a half first, but he couldn't deny that he liked the idea of having something to look forward to.  
He let Auray operate as unofficial platoon leader. She would make a good Sergeant. Maybe it was greedy of him, but in the background he was already making plans for organising the Gunners under his command. Since the Feds considered them worthless, he doubted they would object.

Downstairs the situation was slightly more alarming.  
"Careful, bros, you don't want to make the whole building go kaboom already, do ya?" someone shouted as Grievous entered the main room. The entire floor appeared to have been systematically stripped of any metal and electrical equipment, which apparently was in various stages of conversion into an array of improvised pieces of artillery.  
Five Neimoidians were presiding over the chaos, eyed apprehensively by the handful of B1 droids manning the windows.  
The Gunners had forsaken their bronze armour and helmets and were busy piecing together what looked like a big IED derived from a boiler under the guidance of the Engineer they had rescued at the hangar. An acrid odor floated in the air. A sensor sent an alarm to Grievous' mind. He briefly concentrated on it to decipher its meaning. Apparently the concentration of nitrogenated compounds was well over the safety levels.  
Fertiliser bombs! His Gunners were assembling fertiliser bombs in the building!

He'd had enough targets rigged with them during the Huk wars to know how devastating they could be. If a stray blaster bolt came in from a window, the whole building would go to hell.  
He felt the impulse to yell at them, then quickly repressed it. He didn't want to startle them and trigger an explosion. He tried to calm down, instead, and waited until the piece was assembled, before clearing his throat loudly. The Neimoidians readily turned towards him.

"General Grievous, sir! How can we help ya?" Van Cato asked, saluting smartly.

He had ditched the jacket as well and was standing there in a vest, showing lean muscle and what must be a dark tan for a Neimoidian. Now that he knew what to look for, Grievous could see the lad's resemblance with Gunray. It was not as marked as Leth's but it was definitely there.  
"Are you insane to build so many bombs here?" he rumbled ominously.  
"Only slightly, sir. - Van replied cheekily - We haven't inserted the triggers yet."  
"What about enemy fire?" Grievous insisted.  
"See that line there, sir? - the Engineer chimed in pointing towards a spray-painted mark on the floor - Enemy fire has less than 1% probability of going beyond that. We should be relatively safe." he concluded, shrugging.  
Grievous shook his head. "Even so, I expect you to ask the authorisation of your CO before pulling a stunt like this, next time." he chided.  
"Yessir!" Van acquiesced, looking only moderately chastised.  
Grievous stalked around the room, examining the contraptions, then stopped in front of some oddly familiar improvised mortars.  
"These are nest-blasters!" he exclaimed.  
"You like them, sir? Linlin found the plans for them on a HoloNet forum a while ago." Van explained.  
"They work like a dream and you can make them with almost anything." a woman who must have been Linlin added, wiping her greasy hands on her tunic.  
Grievous nodded. "I know. - he replied, slightly dazed, as a stream of memories surfaced in his consciousness - We used to make them with fertilizer stolen from the Huk plantations and gas canisters, on Kalee. We couldn't afford real artillery back then." he explained softly.  
Ummar... it had been his cousin Ummar who used to build them in a clearing in the forest. He remembered him now, remembered Ummar's wife arguing with him that it was too risky and that he should stop. He remembered Ummar laughing and saying that he wasn't afraid because the gods protected him.  
Brave Ummar... He tried to duel a Jedi during the Republican invasion and the bastard cut both his hands off. He crippled him, instead of giving him a warrior's death like he deserved. Hopefully the money he had sent back home during the years would have been enough to pay for prosthetics...

Grievous forced himself to cut the stream and resurfaced in the present.  
"Are you alright, sir?" Van asked.  
"Yes, private. I was just... remembering. - he replied - Have you ever used them before?"  
Van and Linlin both nodded. "On the shooting range on Neimoidia. Blasted through a few of them to test them." she replied.  
"And the rest of the IEDs?" Grievous asked.  
"Murko's idea." Van replied.  
The Engineer nodded. "I'll light them up as we leave the building. It's payback for the beach, sir. " he explained.  
"We even got incendiaries." another Gunner chimed in, jerking his head towards a row of bottles filled with murky liquid.  
"Nar Shaddaa fire-bottles... You learned that from the Net as well?" Grievous asked, slightly sarcastic.  
"Nosir! - the Gunner replied - From a book. Theory and practice of guerrilla warfare. It always pays to be up-to-date, sir."  
"Do your comrades upstairs know how to use them?" Grievous inquired.  
The Gunner looked a question at Van, who nodded.  
"We tried them at the shooting range as well. Ain't got a lot of range, but they work. Everyone of us has had a go at least once." Van replied.  
"We used to rig slugthrowers to give the bottles more range. - Grievous reminisced - They worked wonders on light personnel-carrier vehicles."  
"Heh! Everyone here likes their bugs crispy!" Van laughed, soon joined by his comrades.  
"I guess we do. - Grievous replied with a hint of laughter - Private Bookworm, what is your name?"  
The Gunner coloured a darker shade of green and became bright with embarrassment. "I'm Neshros Koru. Nesh for short, sir. He is Atinay Deko" he replied, pointing first to himself and then to the remaining Gunner.  
"Well, you two grab half of the bottles and distribute them to your comrades upstairs." Grievous ordered.  
"Yessir!" they exclaimed, promptly starting to divy up the stash.  
"You are going to be the artillery today. - Grievous continued, clasping his hands behind his back - I want you to mow down any armoured unit approaching the building. Use the RPG first. Don't give your new weapons away too soon and leave the IEDs for emergencies or to cover our retreat. Understood?"  
Another enthusiastic chorus of assent saluted his words.  
"Good. I count on you, lads. Make me proud." he concluded.  
He thought he almost saw Van tear up at these words and the answering battlecry nearly deafened him.  
He climbed upstairs with the two Gunners carrying cratesfuls of fire - bottles in tow feeling remarkably smug.

All hell broke loose almost exactly twenty minutes after he had returned to the first floor to talk with Garu.  
"They are coming from the cliff!" someone shouted from the top floor.  
Blaster shots started pattering at a high tempo.  
"Incoming! Armoured formations!" one of the lookouts shouted.  
"And so it begins..." Garu commented, blood draining from his face.  
Grievous looked out. There were at least five or six armoured formations advancing towards the building and more were being kept in reserve.  
Shouts and blaster fire kept resounding from the floor above them. It was a fully fledged two-pronged attack and the snipers were the softest target.  
"Private Garu Cato, you are now Acting Captain of this lot." he declared and Garu nearly shot his own foot in astonishment. Grievous didn't leave him the time to protest and ploughed on.  
"Coordinate with Van downstairs. Don't let the buggers come closer than the road. I'll go upstairs and make sure the roof remains under our control." With this, he grabbed the rifle and dashed to the door.  
"Be ready to evacuate the wounded to this room, if we loose the top floors!" he added, turning back on the threshold.  
Acting Captain Garu managed to get his act together in time to yell "Yessir!". As Grievous climbed the stairs two at a time, he heard Garu start to yell commands to the Gunners. The first RPG shot exploded above the confusion, then the unmistakable sound of fire-bottles crashing on permacrete and wooshing up in flames started to fill the air. Grievous wished he could grin.

Upstairs, Auray had organised half of the snipers around the stairwell coming down from the roof, while the rest covered the windows. The stairwell was narrow enough that the buggers could only negotiate it two at a time, giving the Gunners the chance to pick them off one by one.  
"They got us by surprise, sir, but we managed to reconquer the floor." she explained, wiping the blood from her slashed cheek with her sleeve.  
The attack had cost them dearly, though. Arlune, the other sniper girl, was lying on the floor dead and already shriveled, and Dott was curled on his side, trying to keep his innards from sliding out of his wounded abdomen.  
Grievous activated his wrist-mounted short range comm. "Garu, do you copy?"  
"Yessir! Loud and clear." Garu replied.  
"Send Nyto up! Quick!" Grievous ordered.  
"Right away, sir!" the Acting Captain exclaimed, switching off the comm on his side.  
Nyto tromped up the stairs in a moment, and dashed to the wounded Gunner's side.  
"We need to keep the roof free for evacuation." Grievous explained to the snipers.  
"It's going to be a bloody mess. There are too many of them." Auray grimaced.  
Grievous nodded gravely. "I'll take care of this, but I'll need cover."  
Auray sighed in relief. "You can take Tush with you, sir. - she offered - He's the quickest shot of us all with blaster pistols."  
Tush, short for Tushramos, grinned proudly. "I'm a good dodger too, sir."  
He looked too young for the scar that crossed his face and the two semis he carried at his waist.  
"Let's roll, then." Grievous acquiesced.  
Both him and Tush left their rifles on the second floor and crept up the stairs. Grievous took point, two sabers at the ready, and Tush crept behind him like a shadow. The stairwell was momentarily clear and they arrived unimpeded to the landing at the top. Grievous flattened himself to the ground and peered through the half-broken door. From there, he could see at least ten buggers up top and some ropes dangling from the cliff.  
He half-turned towards Tush and signalled twice by opening and closing his hand. He hoped the lad would know that an open hand meant five no matter how many fingers a person actually had.  
Tush nodded and handed him a grenade from his belt. Grievous looked a question to the Gunner, but he just nodded again.  
Might as well.. Grievous thought. He tore the safety out of the grenade, counted to two, allowing the fuse to burn part of the way, and then slammed the door open and hurled the grenade towards the middle of the huddled buggers, flattening himself on the floor once more. The grenade exploded a moment before it touched the ground.

The buggers had barely the time to be surprised before they had to start looking for their body parts on the floor.

"Come on, lad! Charge!" Grievous ordered, popping up and starting to run.  
"Hell, yeah!" Tush yelled, a few paces behind him.  
The cyborg quickly dispatched the shrieking, wounded buggers, but soon more of them were upon him. He split his arms in two and kept the two upper ones rotating defensively. Hopefully the Naqdaan would be to worried about the lightsabers to notice the gaping hole in his armour. Tush had taken cover behind one of the air vents and was shooting like there was no tomorrow, one blaster in each hand. Thankfully blasters didn't actually recoil, otherwise none of his shots would have actually hit its target, even with the buggers packed tight as they were.  
Grievous could hear the sounds of the battle below. It sounded like a veritable inferno. The RPG kept on booming, regular like a metronome, and the deeper explosions he could hear must have been the nest-blasters. Fire-bottles, grenades and blasters added to the chaos. He ignored the sounds, trusting Garu, Van and Auray to handle the situation. At the moment all he had to think about was keeping the buggers away from the roof.  
He waded deeper in the melee, spinning his arms and torso around like a buzzsaw. Chitinous body parts were sent flying around, even as pincers and claws scratched and gouged the duranium plate, sending small flares of signal into his mind from the integrity sensors.  
"Sir! From the cliff! Take cover!" Tush yelled.  
Grievous stopped the rotation and threw himself reflexively behind a corner of the elevator box, trusting Tush's warning. It was just in time, as blaster fire started pouring on them from above. The Naqdaans on top of the cliff didn't seem to mind hitting their own comrades to catch them. Insect species were often extremely callous towards drones and soldiers, as they could be cheaply mass-produced from unfertilised eggs.  
Flattened against the wall, Grievous could barely make visual contact with Tush, who had managed to wedge himself into a nearly impossibly tight space.  
"Tush! Any grenades left?" Grievous yelled.  
"Yessir!" the Gunner replied.  
"Can you send them up top?" Grievous asked again.  
"Can try, sir!" Tush yelled. The Gunner laid his blasters on the ground and took off his helmet. He had some sort of scarf wrapped around his head, probably to prevent the helmet from chafing. He quickly unwrapped it, grabbed it as if it was a sling and accomodated the grenade in the middle. The Gunner cast a quick look up and around the edge of his hideout.  
"Ain't got enough space! Any chance of giving me cover, sir?" he asked.  
Grievous cursed. He had left his blaster with the witch, and in the ensuing confusion, had forgotten where he had put it. He only had his sabers now, and they were useless at the moment. Or were they?  
The Jedi were known and extremely annoying for being able to deflect blaster bolts with their lightsabers like it was nothing harder than playing racketball. Dooku hadn't taught him that particular trick, and he had always assumed that it was because it required the Force to work, but, now that he thought about it dispassionately, it was all a question of timing and reflexes.  
He only had to put his sabers in the right place at the right time, and the repulsion between the laser blade and the plasma bolt would do the could do it, probably.  
Most likely.  
Well, if he never tried, he'd never know.  
And if he failed he'd only manage to end up full of holes like Onderonian cheese.  
"Ah, fuck this!" he thought, abruptly curtailing his internal debate, and leaped out of his cover, sabers in hand.

He was just lucky that the Naqdaan soldiers were even more scared than him by the sudden turn of events to actually react quickly enough, but it didn't take them very long to start concentrating their fire on him. Grievous dodged and sprinted from cover to cover, shifting their attention away from Tush, but soon he would run out of space and covers. He had to make a stand, however briefly, to give the Gunner a bit of time to do his trick.  
Taking a deep breath, the cyborg skidded to a halt and started rotating his upper arms to protect his face, while he worked the other two sabers in front of him to intercept the incoming bolts. If he concentrated hard enough, he could figure out the trajectories of the single bolts, angles and speed, and determine the exact moment when he had to swing his saber around. The impact of plasma on laser reverberated strangely into the hilts, making them vibrate in his grip, as if they were engaged in a particularly fierce bladelock.  
He was doing it!  
The knowledge couldn't help making him feel smug.  
"Fire in the hole!" Tush yelled finally. A grenade sailed through the air in a neat parable, raising higher and higher, and just clearing the lip of the cliff before exploding. The rain of fire ceased for a moment, as the Naqdaan retreated in disarray. In the confusion, corpses and wounded buggers hurtled down from the cliff.  
Tush yelled victoriously and threw another grenade, increasing the chaos. He was overconfident, though, and was nearly shot down in retaliation by a high-spirited Naqdaan when he didn't retreat fast enough.  
"Take cover, you moron!" Grievous yelled, diving behind one of the air vents himself.  
He had had the beginner's luck, so far, but he reckoned he needed more training before he could pull that sort of stunt for any extended period of time."We need to retreat to the stairwell!" he ordered, after a brief reflection.  
They had managed to repel the Naqdaan from the roof and bloody their noses quite badly, but there was no way they could dislodge them from the cliff with a few slung grenades, some deflected bolts, and an ungodly dose of luck.  
"Yessir!" the Gunner yelled back. He unholstered his guns and sprinted to the open space before the next cover, guns blazing to intimidate the enemy.  
Grievous followed his lead, moving in leaps and bounds between hideouts.  
The Naqdaan were firing vindicatively, and at the last sprint, a bolt reached Tush just before he could dive into the safety of the stairwell.  
Seconds behind him, Grievous dashed in and nearly stepped on a trio of Gunners huddling on the threshold. He took a leap forward, barely clearing them as they ducked, and caught himself, even if barely, on the side walls, finger- and toe-claws gouging deep furrows in the permacrete.  
"For the sake of the gods! - he exclaimed - What the hell are you doing here?!"  
"Acting Sergeant Auray sent us up, sir. To cover your retreat." one of them, who might have been called Khod, explained, looking rather intimidated.  
Grievous took a deep breath and lowered himself to the steps.  
"Do you have any grenades or fire-bottles?" he asked.  
Maybe-Khod and his mates nodded.  
"Good. - Grievous commented - Keep the roof clear of buggers. Request reinforcements if you need, but keep it, understood?" he ordered.  
The two nodded again. "Yessir!"  
Tush instead was too concentrated on peering into a tear in the left leg of his trousers.  
"Are you alright, soldier?" Grievous asked.  
Tush nodded weakly, pale under his dark green tan. "Went straight through the outer side of my tight... Could have been much worse." he commented, gritting his teeth against the pain.  
Just behind him, his comrades were starting to shoot at some unseen assailant. It was no place for a casualty to be.  
Grievous hesitated for a moment, caught between his instinctive reaction and the fear of being shunned, then extended a hand towards Tush. "Come on soldier, let's get you out of the danger zone." he said.  
The lad grabbed his hand without hesitation in a strong, confident grip. His hand felt solid and warm in the cyborg's metal grip. It had been ages since he had taken someone's hand like that.  
The Gunner let Grievous help him to his feet without a second thought, without showing the least revulsion. "Thanks, sir!" he said with a pained smile.  
"Can you walk?" Grievous asked.  
Tush nodded grimly and braced a hand on the wall. Grievous wrapped an arm around the Gunner's waist, and let him put one of his around his shoulders for support.  
Luckily Tush was tall even for a Neimoidian, and they slowly managed to negotiate the stairs, Tush cursing softly at every step, and him marveling at the way the Gunners seemed absolutely unconcerned and accepting about his condition. To them it didn't seem to matter that he was a cyborg, they treated him with respect, even with awe, but like a person. He could get used to that.

"Here you go, soldier. Have a rest. - Grievous said, helping Tush to sit down on the second floor - You did a great job out there."  
The Gunner grinned despite the pain. "Thank you, sir! It's been an honour to help you. - he said cheerfully - When I enlisted, I would have never thought that I'd be fighting alongside the likes of you. I mean, I'm Unclaimed, and you are the Supreme Commander... It's something to tell your kids about..." he added.  
"You might be Unclaimed, but you are a true warrior. It has been an honour for me as well." Grievous replied, laying a hand on the Gunner's shoulder and nodding gravely.  
The sudden arrival of both Nyo and Dyoc was the only thing that spared him from seeing a grown Neimodian cry like a kid.  
The semi-official medic zoomed in on the wounded Gunner, while Dyoc ran straight to him, looking like he was going to jump out of his skin from the sheer excitement.  
"They made contact!" he exclaimed.  
"Who?" Grievous asked, slightly flustered.  
"The battleship Fortressa! Commader Dofine wants to have words with you, sir. He's on hold downstairs." Dyoc replied.  
"And you left him like that?!" Grievous asked, dashing down the stairs.  
"Everyone's a bit busy down there, sir... Had to carry the message myself." Dyoc gasped, trying to keep up with him.  
Everyone was busy indeed. Garu was nearly hoarse from yelling to make himself heard above the din of the battle and all hands were occupied discharging all the available firepower on the incoming buggers.  
The holographic image of Lushros Dofine, instead, seemed intent at watching the show with the critical eye of a connoisseur, nodding to himself every now and then.  
"Ah, General, - Dofine greeted, seeing him enter the holo-comm field of view - I'm relieved to see that you managed to hold out for so long, after all. We're a bit ahead of schedule. I trust it will be a welcome piece of news."  
"This is the best news I've heard in a while, Commander." Grievous admitted, bowing politely.  
Dofine smiled a satisfied little smile. "Your communications officer sent us your precise coordinates already. How many people will we need to collect?" he asked.  
Grievous did a quick head-count. "Twenty-six Gunners, seven B1s, me, and Commander Ventress. We have two critically injured people, and two other wounded."  
Dofine scratched his chin pensatively. "I'll send two shuttles plus aerial support. Be ready to evacuate in ten minutes." he instructed.  
Grievous nodded. "Make a couple of strafing passes on the cliff overlooking our position, if you will. We'll evacuate from the roof." he advised.  
Dofine nodded. "Agreed. See you all in ten." he said and cut the communication.

"Did you hear that, people? We're going home!" Garu yelled. The Gunners answered with a deafening roar.  
"We've got ten minutes to go still, let's blast those buggers to the end!" Garu added, shouting into his comm to make sure the units downstairs and on the top floor would also know.  
"Nyto! - Grievous called out - Report here!"  
The medic appeared swiftly, wiping his bloodied hands on a piece of fabric. "Reporting, sir." he said wearily.  
"We are evacuating from the roof in ten minutes. - Grievous announced - What is the situation with the casualties?"  
"Dott and Commander Ventress will have to be carried. Tranh and Tush can walk. - Nyto replied calmly - The rest are minor injuries. They can fend for themselves"  
"I'll take care of Commander Ventress. - Grievous declared - You grab one of your mates and look after Dott."  
"Yessir!" Nyto said and promptly started looking for a volunteer.  
Grievous tarried for a moment to watch his Gunners at work, then slinked into the back-room.

Tranh was awake and staring in front of himself in the distance, but he snapped out of his funk when he saw his CO enter the room.  
He tried to salute, but his right hand was missing and his arm was suspended from his neck in a sling. Even in the semi-darkness, Grievous could see his face become bright with embarrassment.  
"Be at ease, Private. - Grievous whispered - Rejoin your comrades, we're leaving." he instructed.  
Tranh nodded mutely and slinked away, staggering a bit because of the drugs. There was something wrong with the lad, but it would have to wait.  
Grievous walked as silently as he could to the pallet where the witch was resting.  
She was sleeping fitfully, twitching and whimpering softly like a restless katara hound, and her skin was still very bright with fever. Even so, she was huddling under his torn and dirty cloak, holding it fiercely even in sleep. It must have been because the fever was making her feel cold, but Grievous couldn't help but feel a little bit of possessive satisfaction at the scene.  
"Time to wake up, witch..." he whispered, or near enough, kneeling on the ground next to her.  
The witch twitched a bit more and slowly opened her eyes.  
"What... what has happened?" she mumbled weakly.  
Her feelings were still leaking all over the place and he could almost taste her confusion and pain and her need for someone to be there for her, to support her as she fought her battle with illness and pain.  
"We're going. The Fortressa is here." he said. Unable to resist the temptation of warmth and contact, he laid a hand on her burning forehead, and for barely an instant he felt her relief reverberating through him. He closed his eyes and savoured the closeness, then realised what he was doing, withdrew his hand, and hastily cut off whatever metaphysical shit he had unwittingly been doing. He needed to concentrate for a while more to see the evacuation through, before he could indulge in that, whatever it was.  
"Uh... Don't go away..." the witch protested softly and Grievous nearly yielded there and then.  
"I'm here. You're coming with me." he replied disingenuously, leaning over and picking her up in his arms. She threw her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.  
"Let's go." he said, struggling to come to terms with the odd tenderness he was feeling at the moment.  
The witch nodded and he rose to his feet, just as Nyto and another shortish Gunner came in with a makeshift stretcher to pick up Dott.  
As they entered the front room, the first Trade Federation armoured shuttle was entering the operations area, guns blazing. The high-caliber lasers vaporized scores of buggers, raising plumes of soil and debris high into the air as they hit the ground. From the sounds of it, at least another one was strafing the cliff just above them, as agreed.  
"Everybody to the roof in orderly fashion, boys and girls! We're going home!" Grievous ordered, jerking his head towards the stairs.  
The Gunners saluted his words with a loud "Hooray!" and filed up the stairs, hauling as much gear as they could carry. Grievous let them pass and joined the queue only when he saw the artillery emerge from the ground floor.  
"The fireworks are armed, sir." Van announced, sauntering up the stairs.  
"We'll give them a parting gift they will remember. " Murko chimed in, grinning like a maniac as he held an ominous-looking remote.  
"Keep that safe, soldier!" Grievous ordered, starting to get irritated with the careless attitudes of the artillers.  
"I'm not a soldier..." Murko protested feebly, pocketing the remote.  
Van encircled the Engineer's thin shoulders with his arm. "You fought with us, you are our brother now." he declared.  
Murko gave him a goofy smile and did not reply.  
"First shuttle's landed!" yelled one of the outlooks.  
To their credit, the Gunners didn't pile up like maniacs trying to get in first, but climbed the last flight of stairs to the roof in reasonable order.  
The shuttle hadn't actually landed, but had docked on the edge of the roof and was hovering in place. Another shuttle and two gunships were circling above their heads, keeping the area clear.  
"Casualties first!" Nyto shouted.  
Garu turned towards his CO for confirmation and Grievous nodded.  
"You heard him!" Garu yelled.  
Nyto and the other Gunner carrying the stretcher went in first, followed by Tranh and by Tush, who had been aided up the stairs by one of the girls from Garu's team. Grievous went in after them.  
"Me and Auray will go in the next." Garu announced as he passed by them.

In a few minutes, the shuttle had loaded its cargo and taken off to exchange positions with its twin.  
Before five minutes at most had passed, both shuttles had been loaded and were leaving the operations area.  
Grievous looked out of the window and watched the wretched airstrip and the factory become smaller and smaller in the distance.  
He nodded towards Murko, who had managed to board the same shuttle in the evacuation. The Engineer beamed and pressed the button of his remote with undeniable satisfaction.  
The resulting explosion was strong enough to rock the climbing shuttle and sent a plume of flames and debris high up in the air. The concrete and steel skeleton of the building collapsed upon itself as if in slow motion.  
The Gunners hooted and cheered. Some boy, whose name Grievous didn't remember, hugged Murko so hard that the Engineer gasped for breath like a stranded fish.

From the stretcher where he had reluctantly deposited her, the witch watched the whole scene with bright and slightly unfocused eyes, chuckling quietly under her breath.  
"We made it." she whispered, snaking a hand out of the cloak to gently touch his.  
"Yes, we did. We're not a bad team, are we?" Grievous whispered back, feeling oddly contented even though the mission had ended in a disaster.  
The witch smiled and gave him one her long, considering glances. "No, we're not..." she agreed, linking her fingers awkwardly with his and nodding off again.  
The wild cheering and joking of the Gunners, overtaken by the sheer happiness of being still alive, continued unabated for a while. Grievous didn't even notice.  
He just sat there in silence, contemplating their mismatched hands, tangled together.


	4. Battleship Fortressa

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original Star Wars characters. I do own the OCs, though. I do not make a £ from this.**

Relatively fluffy and innocuous, apart from a remembered death. The scene was lifted almost precisely from the biography of Subcomandante Marcos, except that in reality it was not his son, but a girl from a village in Chiapas.

Flame all you want, I'm fireproof.

* * *

The powerful tractor beams of the Lucrehulk-class battleship deposited the shuttles in the ship's massive hangars without a hitch.  
Grievous reluctantly disentangled his hand from Asajj's and stood up. He didn't want to leave her, but he had to respect Neimoidian formalities and greet the Commander.  
The shuttle's landing bay opened and he stalked down the gangway and towards the cluster of officers gathered to welcome him, acutely aware that he must look quite bedraggled, without his cape and with strips of tarp wrapped around his chest.  
He shook his Neimoidian officers would probably look askance at him even if he didn't look like he had been through the wars.  
He shouldn't be ashamed of what amounted to battle-scars.

"Welcome back on the Fortressa, General." Commander Dofine greeted, bowing from the waist.  
The gaggle of officers followed his suit, and Grievous had learned enough about Neimoidian customs to know that he had to respond in kind. Failing to do so would be a terrible offence to the Neimoidians.  
In another situation he might have considered it, but Dofine was actually one of the few Neimoidians he respected and who respected him.  
"I'm honoured of the hospitality, Commander. Thank you for coming to our rescue." Grievous replied bowing stiffly.  
Dofine pursed his thin lips. "It is my duty as an officer in this army to assist you, and to make amends for the dishonour of my compatriots." he replied pursing his lips.

Out of the corner of his eye, Grievous saw Nyto trying to coordinate the transport of the wounded. Medical droids forced even Tush and Tranh on gurneys and started to wheel everyone away, mostly ignoring him.  
"That soldier down there, - Grievous pointed out - he is our medical officer. I formally request that he is given clearance to the infirmary. "  
Dofine nodded. "Agreed. - he said - Where are the rest of the officers from the expedition?"  
Grievous shrugged, then belatedly remembered that the Neimoidians considered it an uncouth gesture. Well, they would have to deal with it.  
"We lost contact with the command of the expedition. I suppose they are dead or have been captured. We didn't have any way of finding out. - he explained - Commander Ventress has been wounded, but, if you allow me, I would introduce to the officers of the 15th."  
"By all means." Dofine conceded placidly.  
The other officers, instead, grimaced and quietly shook their heads.

Grievous turned around and signalled to Auray, Garu, Dyoc and Van to come closer. The Gunners approached cautiously, stopped beside him and saluted smartly.  
"Gentlemen, I believe you already know Corporal Dyoc Koru, the comm officer." he began, and the poor boy's eyes went so wide that Grievous feared they would roll out of this their sockets.  
"This is Captain Garu Cato, - Grievous continued, feeling proud and amused at the same time - Sergeant Auray Enac, leading the snipers, and Sergeant Van Cato, leading the artilliery." He purposefully omitted the "Acting" in front of their new grades. The posh boys from the Fortressa would give them a hard enough time even so.

"They must be a fine squadron, these Gunners from the 15th, to be the only survivors of the expedition." Dofine commented. The junior officers grimaced some more, but didn't dare contradicting their superior.  
What was left of Grievous' face twisted into an almost-smile under the mask. "They are." he said.  
Dofine smirked and bowed again. "Will you and your officers do us the courtesy of joining us on the bridge, General?" he asked ceremoniously. High-ranking Neimoidians were extraordinarily fond of ceremony, and Dofine didn't make exception, even if he was cut from a different cloth from the average upper-class Neimoidian.  
"With your permission, sirs, I will join you later. - Garu chimed in - I have to make sure that my men are properly settled in for the trip." he added proudly.  
Dofine cast an amused glance at the General.  
"Permission granted, Captain." Grievous acquiesced.  
Garu bowed stiffly, then saluted, before turning sharply on his bootheels and running towards his comrades.  
"I should go with him, sir, to oversee the cargo, you know... " Van offered nervously, eyes darting between the retreating form of his brother and the bunch of officers from the Fortressa.  
Grievous sighed. "Go ahead, Sergeant. Make sure the explosives are properly stowed." he conceded.  
Van bowed sketchily and belted away after his brother.  
"Shall we go now, or do your remaining officers have somewhere else to go as well?" Dofine asked, arching an eyebrow in dry amusement.  
"Let's, by all means." Grievous replied.

Dofine nodded and turned on his heel, mirrored by his cadre of seemed to be moving in formation, which was a bit creepy, Grievous thought.  
He, Dyoc and Auray followed them out of the hangar and into a turbolift, up to the higher levels of the ship, and then down a corridor leading to the circular core of the ship.  
Auray and Dyoc did their best not to stare and gape like country bumpkins, but a wash of awe was evident on their faces. The Neimoidians' obsession for protocol and ceremony dictated that no soldier below the rank of Lieutenant was to be admitted to the high levels or the core of a Lucrehulk-class ship, except if following their superior's explicit orders. The two had never seen a ship's bridge before, and looked quite excited by the prospective.  
He had felt like that when he had first set foot on a long-hauler, Grievous remembered in a fleeting flash of images and feelings.

The bridge was an awe-inspiring sight indeed, well-organised and free of the unnecessary trappings rich Neimoidians usually surrounded themselves with to showcase their status. It was almost spartan in its essentiality, but Grievous could distinguish several pieces of top-of-the-line equipment in addition to the ship's standard gear.  
As he had already occasion to see during their flight from Geonosis, Dofine took extreme pride on the fact that the Fortressa was the best ship of his class and he certainly made sure that it remained so, by careful and tasteful improvements.  
"We will be making a landing at the naval base on Raxus Secundus. - Dofine announced - Our ETA should be close to three hours, so you might want to take a seat, gentlemen." he added, sitting down himself.  
Grievous nodded and took a seat around the briefings table, next to Dofine. Auray and Dyoc followed his lead and kept close to him, while Dofine's officers took what he supposed were their usual stations.

"Can I offer you anything, General?" Dofine asked, true to form to the point of absurdity. Or was he?  
Grievous thought about it for a second and bit back the sarcastic reply he had been about to deliver. Probably his officers were too low-rank for Dofine to offer them food or drink directly, but his question was leaving an opening for him to make a request on their behalf.  
"I require nothing, thank you Commander, but my officers have been fighting for hours. I'm sure they would appreciate some refreshments." he said finally.  
Dofine nodded and smiled, looking almost pleased that he had understood his subtle meaning.  
"I'll have something brought up from the galley. - Dofine acquiesced, pressing a button on the console - In the meantime, why don't you give us some details on how you ended up in such a sticky situation?"  
Grievous didn't really feel like it, but there was no polite way of bailing out of that, and he owed the Neimoidian too big a favour to just tell him to sod off. He nodded.  
"Of course, Commander." he assented, and started recounting the events of that most amazing day.

By the time Grievous had finished delivering an expurgated version of the story, he had talked for long enough to tire himself and to be plagued by an irritating series of coughing fits.  
In the meantime, Garu and Van had managed to join them and refreshments had been served. His officers were now busy eating pungent-smelling dishes of marinated fungi and moulds, and quaffing cups of fragrant fuit juice. Grievous didn't care about the food, even if the Neimodians seemed very enthusiastic about it, but he would have given anything for a cup of cold juice to soothe his throat.  
"It is a truly thrilling story, General, a fine example of the bravery of our troops." Commander Dofine commented, aiming a sketchy bow towards the Gunners.  
"And also a showcase of what does not work in this army." Grievous objected archly, and promptly started to cough again.  
Dofine nodded. "I want you to know that I wholeheartedly support any legal action you and Commander Ventress will undertake against the deserters. - he declared - I know a very good litigator, in case you need it. I can put you in contact, if you wish." he offered after a brief pause.  
Grievous gave him a perplexed look, then nodded politely. He had never given much thought to the proceedings of the Court Martial. In truth, he had no clue about how it worked.  
Idly, he tried to recall how they dealt with deserters on Kalee, but drew a blank. It mustn't have been anything nice. Then again, contrary to the Neimoidians, his was a fierce people and very few people left the battlefield and their comrades until they were either victorious or dead.  
"Thank you Commander." Grievous said finally.

The door to the bridge opened with a soft hiss and Nyto dashed in, looking flustered and alarmed. The medical officer pulled up short in front of the briefings table and bowed deeply.  
"Have you come to join us, medical officer...?" Commander Dofine greeted placidly.  
"Nyto Enac, sir. - the Gunner completed - Unfortunately not, sir, we have something of a medical emergency down there." he added.  
Grievous tensed on the chair, feeling a trickle of apprehension creep into his mind.  
"What has happened?" he barked, more brusquely than he had intended.  
"It's Commander Ventress, sir. Her condition is nearing critical stage." he replied, mortified.  
Grievous jumped to his feet. "Take me to the infirmary. Now." he ordered. Nyto nodded and started back the way he had come.  
"Excuse me, Commander, I..." Grievous belatedly said to Dofine, turning back on the threshold.  
The Neimoidian nodded. "It's no problem. Send my best wishes to Commander Ventress." he said.  
Grievous nodded and dashed behind Nyto down the corridors of the Fortressa.

Grievous hated medical facilities.  
He hated the cold white lights, the gleam of sleek instrumentation, the beeps and hisses of sensors and life support equipment, and especially the pungent smell of bacta.  
A mere whiff of the thing was enough to make him feel uncomfortable and trapped, and the medical facility on the Fortressa _reeked_ of it.  
Grievous had to pause on the threshold and steel himself, cursing whoever thought that it was a good idea to let him keep a gagging reflex. He was fine, as fine as he could ever be, and no one was going to stick him in a bloody bacta up and get in there, he told himself.  
Taking a deep breath, he stepped in.

The witch was lying motionless on a camp bed esconced behind a greenish privacy screen that separated it from the beds of the other Gunners. Her skin was covered by a fine sheen of sweat and was flushed almost pink and bright with heat.  
"Her temperature is reaching the safety limits for near-humans." Nyto announced grimly, checking the sensor readings against the standard table displayed on a nearby datapad.  
"Didn't you give her antibiotics?" Grievous asked, trying to keep calm.  
"A full dose, and intravenously to make it quicker, but they take time to act. - Nyto replied, pointing to an IV drip taped to the back of the witch's right hand. - She'd need antipyretics to lower the fever, but there are none specific for near-humans in the infirmary. This is a Neimoidian ship..." he added apologetically.  
Grievous looked at the reading on the monitor and then back at the witch. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her breathing, and he could see her pulse jump erratically on the side of her neck. Her brows were drawn in a frown and her dark lips pursed in a grimace.  
She was not truly sleeping, but their voices and the confusion of the infirmary couldn't rouse her.

"Why did you call me here, soldier? I'm not a doctor!" Grievous growled, turning back to Nyto.  
Seeing her like that without knowing what to do was making him feel helpless and useless, and he hated that feeling.  
"I need you to authorise me to give her the antipyretics we have here." Nyto replied quietly.  
"Will they work?" Grievous asked, allowing himself to feel a bit of relief.  
Nyto hesitated. "They might. - he replied - But they might give her a severe allergic reaction." he added.  
"And what if they do?" Grievous inquired, out of his depth.  
"It might be fatal, especially in her conditions." Nyto admitted, shaking his head.  
"No. This is unacceptable." Grievous declared firmly, feeling his insides freeze with dread.  
"I don't like the odds either, sir, but if we do nothing, she will start having convulsive fits because her nervous system cannot cope with the heat. She might have brain damage or die." Nyto retorted heatedly.  
Grievous shook his head and took a step away from the Gunner before he did something stupid like hitting him.

Neither option was acceptable.  
The witch could not die, not like that, on a bed hooked to a machine, and not now, after what had happened on Naqdaa.  
He would not let her.  
There was bound to be another solution. He only needed to keep his cool to see it.  
"Water! We need cold water to lower her temperature and give her more time." he realised in a flash of inspiration. They would have the right kind of drugs at the base on Raxus Secundus, it was just a matter of giving her the time to get there.  
Nyto gaped at him, blinking rapidly, then hit his forehead with an open palm. "I am a total asshat! Why didn't I think about it earlier?! - he berated himself - Right. We'll need some ice, a tub... I'll find something to do the trick." he added with renewed determination, belting towards the door.

Left alone, Grievous turned towards the bed and lay a hand on the witch's forehead, trying to give her some solace. She groaned in pleasure at the contact. There were bright sides to being always at room temperature, the cyborg told himself.  
"Wake up, witch... - he tried to whisper - Follow my voice. I need you to wake up." he entreated.  
Her eyelids fluttered and her lips moved as if trying to form a reply, but she didn't resurface.  
Grievous cast a look around and found some sort of washrag and a bottle of water. He quickly wet the fabric with a splash of cool water and gently dabbed it over the witch's face. She muttered something, then her silver eyes opened.  
"Welcome back, witch... - he greeted softly - Keep your eyes open! Stay here, alright?" he added apprehensively, seeing her lids droop back again.  
Asajj nodded weakly. "What...?" she slurred.  
"You have a high fever. Nyto has gone to find something to make you feel better." he explained, placing the wet fabric on her forehead.  
"I need you to stay awake, witch. You have to fight, understood?" he added sternly.  
She nodded minutely. "It's hard." she muttered.  
"I know. I'm here to help you." Grievous said.  
He could see that she was fighting as hard as she could to obey, but the pull of unconsciousness was too strong. He had to do something to help her fight, but what? Maybe he should try to link up with her, like she had done with him at the factory and he had inadvertently almost done before the evacuation. If the link had allowed him to sleep after years of wakefulness, maybe it would help her stay awake.  
He mulled the thought in his head for a moment. It seemed as good an idea as any, in those circumstances. Now the only problem was creating the blasted link in the first place.  
So far he had either followed her lead, or acted out of instinct, following impulses that had very little to do with he do that again from stone-cold necessity?  
Only one way to know, he told himself, trying to recall the feeling of connectedness he had experienced with her, and to find a way to recapture it.

He distantly remembered sitting cross-legged on the flagstones in the penumbra of the temple, letting the presence of the gods and ancestors of his people swirl around him. He remembered letting go of the boundaries that separated him from the rest of the world, and feeling the spirits beside him, close enough to whisper warnings and encouragement.  
He remembered his spirit linking to another, so close that they almost became one being, remembered feeling what they felt, in perfect synchrony, forgetting what loneliness was like.  
Was that a memory or wishful thinking? Hard to tell.  
Then the flux of memories shifted to something closer, more clear and concrete.  
The witch, fighting at his side, painted in the blood of the fallen, then her again, straddling his lap, her warmth, her scent all over him, and then the touch of her mind against his, calling, beckoning. Letting go, and the fleeting moment when his consciousness had been all over the place, and then... her, only her.

Grievous took a deep breath and laid his hand against her brow again, soaking up her warmth. He tried to calm and clear everything else from his mind, until only her was left, the sound of her breaths, the rhythm of her beating heart, the feel of her skin against his fingers.  
"Hold on to me. You can do this, witch." he entreated, as he let his shields fall and aimed for her presence. It was easier than he would have thought, as if his spirit already knew the shape of hers and could immediately find its way. She accepted the contact eagerly, almost desperately, and he could feel whatever link they had forged before click back in place as if it had never been broken.  
A torrent of panic, confusion and loneliness washed over him for an instant, nearly driving him to his knees, but it soon ebbed down into something that felt almost like peace. He was starting to feel slightly wobbly and drowsy, but it was something he could control, for now.  
"Yes, just like that. Hang tight." Grievous whispered, feeling her anchor her mind to consciousness through their contact, dragging herself out of the delirium. Her silver eyes opened again, looking marginally more clear.  
Asajj smiled weakly. "How did you...?" she whispered with a hint of wonder.  
Grievous shrugged. "Does it matter?"  
"No." she mouthed, grasping his wrist with her left hand.

Nyto appeared at the edge of the curtained space wheezing and panting and looking quite dejected.  
"There are... no tubs big enough... and not enough ice." he announced.  
Grievous cursed loudly, wracking his brains for an alternative. Maybe the water from a refresher cubicle would be cold enough...  
"The cooling system tanks!" someone shouted from beyond the screen.  
"What?!" Grievous exclaimed, turning towards the source of the voice and moving the screen slightly to one side with his free hand.  
Tranh's pale face paled even further. "The air-con of the Lucrehulk. It is cooled with cold water. I know because I used to work as maintenance in the shipyards... - he explained timidly - The tanks are in the service area of the hangars." he added.  
"How cold is the water?" Nyto jumped in.  
Tranh shrugged. "Cold. Maybe 283 K, maybe a bit more. Cold enough to numb you." he replied.  
"It would work." Nyto declared, nodding.  
"Then let's do it." Grievous ordered.  
"Do what?" Asajj asked, perplexity swirling around her thoughts.  
Grievous turned back towards her. "Your fever is too high and there are no drugs which would be right for you on this ship." he explained, casting a quick glance to Nyto for confirmation. The Gunner nodded.  
"The only thing we can try is to lower it with cold water." Grievous continued.  
The witch grimaced. "No other way?" she asked anxiously.  
"No, sir." Nyto replied, shaking his head.  
Asajj let a small whimper escape her. Grievous could sense how paradoxically cold she was feeling, despite the fact that she was burning up, and could imagine that being dunked in frigid water would be one of the least appealing experiences she could think of at the moment.  
"Crap. - she cursed - I... Let's do it, then. Gods..." she acquiesced, grimacing and tossing her head on the pillow.  
"I know it's brutal, Commander, but I'll try to minimise your discomfort." Nyto promised.  
The witch nodded. "Come on. Do it quick, before I lose my nerve." she urged him.  
Nyto nodded again. "I'll grab some blankets and an emergency kit. Can you carry her, sir?" he asked to the General.

Grievous tried not to look too enthusiastic about the perspective of being able to hold her close again. He knew that she valued her independence and wouldn't like to be treated as the stereotypical damsel in distress.  
She wasn't. She was his equal, his rival, his match in almost everything. That was why he wanted her so much. For once in his relationship with her, he didn't want to prevaricate.  
"Can't you wheel her around in the gurney? She'd be more comfortable." he suggested.  
Nyto was rummaging in a cupboard, extracting some equipment and tossing it into a bag. "The corridors in the service areas are tight. The gurney wouldn't be able to turn." he replied.  
"Ah, well... If it is so..." Grievous commented, trying to sound neutral, but feeling secretly pleased.  
The witch let go of his wrist and slapped his forearm, giving him a sharp look. Either she had already realised that he liked holding her, or he had given himself away through the link.  
"Are you alright with me carrying you?" he asked, trying to repress his embarrassment.  
"Of course I am!" the witch replied heatedly.  
Confused by her reaction, Grievous tossed the wet fabric into one of the bio-waste bins and slid his arms under the witch's shoulders and knees, picking her up with all the blankets. She snuggled into a comfortable position with her head on his shoulder and an arm thrown around his neck for support and sighed contentedly. Gods, but it felt good...  
"You're no good at playing coy, you know? - she said in a whisper, so that only he could hear her - You like this. Admit it."  
Grievous hesitated, then nodded.  
"Good." she whispered, sounding and feeling satisfied.  
Even more confused, Grievous let the topic fall. If they really had to discuss this, it would be better to do it in a less public setting, and when she wasn't borderline delirious.  
There were more pressing issues, like trying to figure out a way to disentangle the antibiotic drip from the rest of the cables and things.  
He should have thought of it earlier, instead of behaving like a horny teenager. What now?

A small cry of pain came from beyond the screen. Grievous peered around, only to see that Tranh had somehow managed to unhook himself from the IV drip and was standing up, even if he looked a but pale and wobbly.  
"It's alright, sir. I'm coming to help." he declared firmly, staggering towards the drip stand.  
"Private Tranh, you should stay where you are..." Grievous protested, but the Gunner cut him short.  
"I still have got one good hand, and, before I have to leave the Batallion, I will do my duty to the end." he declared, tangling with the problem.  
"Leave the Batallion?" Grievous asked, perplexed, feeling that his perplexity was echoed by the witch.  
Before he could ask for clarifications, Nyto completed his quest for supplies and came back to the bed, burdened with a big bag and a bundle of blankets.  
"Are we ready?" he asked.  
"Ready!" Tranh replied victoriously, wheeling the drip stand towards the rest of the group.  
"Ready." Grievous acquiesced.  
"Let's go. Be ready to give us directions, brother." Nyto instructed.  
Tranh nodded, proud and determined, and the odd group left the infirmary at a fast walk.

Held tight but gently in the General's metal arms, Asajj Ventress idly tried to figure out where in the ship they were headed. What seemed an endless sequence of corridors passed in front of her eyes. It was quite boring and, weary as she felt, in other circumstances, she would have nodded off, but something was keeping her conscious.  
Grievous had managed to restore the link they had unwittingly created at the factory, and was using it to lend her some of his wakefulness, shoring her up against the onslaught of oblivion.  
He was nothing but resourceful and determined, she had to admit it. And, much to her chagrin, he was saving her again. Asajj made a mental note that she should try not to make an habit of it. It would definitely ruin her reputation.

When they arrived at their destination, Tranh looked like he was going to collapse. He let himself fall to the ground, breathing hard and cradling his maimed arm to his chest. Nyto dashed to his side, but the Gunner shoved him away with his good hand.  
"Don't worry about me. I'm alright. - he rasped - The tank...The controls to open it are on the left-hand side. There are steps inside, like a pool." he instructed.  
Nyto nodded. "Thanks, brother. " he said, thumping a fist to his chest in salute, then dashed to the tank and quickly managed to pry it open.  
Grievous carried her that way, stalking in silence. From her vantage point, Asajj could see the inside of the tank, a pool of gently rippling dark water.  
Nyto stuck a thermal probe into the water and read the output on his datapad. "282 K." he announced.  
"Cold as a mountain stream." Grievous commented.  
The medical officer nodded. "It should do the trick. Ever done it before, sir?"  
Grievous hesitated, then nodded. "And you? he asked.  
"Plenty of times. There aren't a lot of medical drugs available in the slums of Enac. - Nyto replied with a shrug - I'll time you."  
Grievous nodded again. "Let's do this then." he said.

He split his arms, and Asajj had to admit that, up close, it looked and sounded creepy. His sabers fell to the floor, then the blankets wrapped around her followed suit. Grievous reconnected his arms and climbed the steps to the edge of the tank, then took a deep breath and climbed down into it, sinking in the water to his knees.  
He cursed under his breath and, even in her weakened state, Asajj caught on to the wave dreadful anticipation that went through him. It was going to be cold, extremely cold.  
Asajj lost her nerve.  
"Oh, no! Please, no!" she pleaded, struggling frantically to break from his grasp.  
"I don't like it anymore than you do, witch, but there is no other way. - he replied, looking none too happy himself - Just hold on to me and breathe, you'll be fine." he added, almost gently.  
Asajj forced herself to stop struggling. She gritted her teeth and nodded, trusting that, since he liked the cold even less than she did, he wouldn't put her through this without a reason.  
"Try not to scream, alright?" he whispered and she nodded again, breathing faster and faster and tensing up in anticipation.

rievous took another step down into the tank and then another, and bent his knees, sitting in the frigid water up to his chest. Asajj just barely managed not to scream as the thermal shock hit her. She writhed and whimpered, scratching her fingernails against his duranium plate in an attempt to get a better hold of him as shivers wracked her body.  
"Hang in there, witch... It'll be better in a moment, you'll see." he said in a strangely tight voice, only to end up coughing pitifully at the end of the sentence.  
Asajj didn't even have the strength to reply, and her teeth were chattering so hard that she'd have bitten her tongue off if she tried anyway.  
She felt herself blacking out again and struggled to stay conscious. Through the link, bigger and bigger fragments of what he was feeling flashed into her mind.

_Cold... So cold... Dark as the night and darker still, sucking away all the brightness._  
_The water lapping against him and the weight of a shivering body in his arms..._  
_There had been a boy once... a boy with red-brown skin and dark curls like his own, eyes sunk in his little face and bright with fever, so weakened by his illness that he could hardly shiver. _  
_He had stood in the ice-cold stream for the best part of a night, cradling him in his arms and hoping that the fever would break and that he'd be fine. He had talked to him, told him stories to keep him awake, told him how much he loved him, until the cold had weakened him so much that he could hardly talk, that he could hardly stand, and still it had taken two of his kin to drag him out of the water at dawn, and to break his hold on the cold, little corpse of his son._  
_And he had lain there on the bank of the stream as the sun rose, asking himself what was the point of his life, if he could never save those he loved..._

With an effort, Asajj hauled herself back to consciousness, feeling her eyes sting with sadness and irreparable loss. So much death... First his father, then the woman he loved, and then his son... Asajj was starting to realise that Grievous must have been a broken man long before before his body had been shattered in the spaceship crash.  
"N-not g-going a-anywhere..." she managed to stutter past the chattering of her teeth.  
Grievous blinked a few times and shook his head, as if to clear the images away from his mind, before he looked down at her with relief and a soft expression in his eyes.  
"See that you don't. - he replied - It's hard to find decent collaborators." he added after a brief pause to cough.  
Asajj managed a smile and tried to find the forces to form a snappy reply. "You suck at coy." she whispered. Grievous tried to laugh, but ended up coughing again. Asajj felt a lance of pain stab through her chest. It took her a moment to realise that it was coming from him.  
"Time!" Nyto yelled.  
"Thank the gods..." Grievous muttered, shakily getting back to his feet and clambering out of the tank. Out of the icy water, Asajj felt a bit of shared relief course through them both.

Grievous sank to the ground, coughing again, and set her down on the discarded blankets. Nyto dashed in with some more blankets and gently wrapped her in, then stuck a probe to her temple, reading out her temperature.  
"It's lowering!" the Gunner exclaimed.  
"Hooray!" Tranh exclaimed, from the other side of the room.  
Grievous instead was once again coughing pitifully, curled into an almost ridiculously tight ball against the side of the tank. With the fever retreating and wrapped in the blankets, Asajj was starting to feel warm again, but a terrible, oppressive chill was coming through the link.  
It was didnt' have almost any protection against the elements, and precious little ability to warm up quickly. He was half-frozen.  
"Nyto! Get some blankets! Help him!" she ordered, jerking her head towards the cyborg. The medical officer looked perplexed for a moment, then nodded and ran off to do as commanded.  
Grievous was feeling poorly enough that he didn't protest when Nyto wrapped him in a couple of blankets, just nodded and curled back up among fresh bouts of coughing.  
Asajj could still feel his pain and cold and knew that it was still not enough. Blankets could only help keep in the warmth radiating from a body, not generate heat themselves, and she imagined that Grievous would have very little heat to spare. And that cough... She needed to find a way to make it stop, before he managed to give himself an emphysema. Asajj cursed inwardly and tried to drag herself towards him.  
"Commander!? What..?!" Nyto gaped.  
"Help me, you two!" Asajj exclaimed, trying to push herself up on trembling arms.  
Both Nyto and Tranh ran to her side, and between the two of them, they managed to help her to her good foot and prop her up as she hopped the short distance to the General. Asajj let herself slide to the ground next to him and then underneath the blankets. His whole frame was shaken by useless little shivers.  
"Wi... Commander... - Grievous said, hastily correcting himself - What are you doing?" he protested, but wrapped an arm around her shoulders all the same.  
"I'm trying to warm you up... Unless you'd prefer one of the guys..." she provoked, wriggling to find a comfortable position, curled against his side with her bad leg extended.  
The two Gunners froze and started to panic."Neimoidians run cooler than near-humans, sir..." Nyto offered, terribly embarassed.  
Grievous made another of those ambiguous cough/laugh sounds and shifted closer to her, leaning into the heat of her body.  
Asajj couldn't help but smile at his reaction. She laid a hand on his chest and sent a quick pulse of Force-healing through her palm, hoping that it would find its target. She wasn't expert or powerful enough to fix him, if it was even possible, all that she wanted was to soothe the inflammation a bit, just so that he managed to stop coughing.  
It seemed to be working, because the faint pain she was sensing before disappeared, and Grievous relaxed even further with a shuddering sigh. Asajj could feel the cold start to dissipate and a warm, contented feeling pervade him.  
Damn, she could get used to curling up like that beside him.

"Do you need more blankets, sirs?" Nyto asked after a moment, still mildly embarrassed. Asajj was too busy feeling good to reply.  
"There will be no need. I'm already much better. - Grievous declared instead - I just underestimated the correction factor of the homeostatic system. It's getting back to normal, now." he added self-deprecatively.  
It had been because of her warmth, Asajj realised, because it had been all over him through the link.  
"I'm sorry..." she whispered.  
"It's alright, no lasting damage." he replied as softly as he could, squeezing her shoulder under the blankets in reassurance.  
"Do we need to do this again?" Asajj asked in a louder voice, turning slightly towards the two Neimoidians.  
"No, sir, your temperature has returned below trigger levels." Nyto replied with evident satisfaction.  
Both her and Grievous sighed in relief.  
"Let's get you to somewhere more comfortable, then, Commander." he proposed reluctantly.  
Asajj nodded, feeling tired and sleepy again, now that the adrenalin from the icy dunk was ebbing away. This time it was't the mind-numbing exhaustion of the fever, just relaxation, like after a hard fight. She almost wished they could stay curled up like that for a while. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was nice.

Grievous instead picked her up again as easily as the first time, and, after a few words had been traded between him and Nyto, he started back towards the infirmary. Asajj peacefully zoned out along the way, realising they had arrived only when he deposited her back on the infirmary bed.  
"You should be safe now. - he said, lightly brushing his fingers over her brow - I have to go back to the bridge."  
"I know. - she replied, shivering slightly and not just for the cold - Can you pass me a blanket, before you go?"  
Grievous nodded and cast a look around. "This is the only thing left which is not soaking wet. - he announced apologetically, grabbing his ruined cloak from the floor - You'll have to wait for Nyto to find some more blankets, I fear." he added, setting it down again on a nearby chair.  
Asajj hesitated only an instant. "That will do."  
Grievous turned towards her with a confused but hopeful expression."Are you sure?" he asked.  
Asajj nodded. "It's quite warm."  
Grievous sighed and draped the heavy garment over her, watching her with hooded eyes. It was not possessiveness, not just that. He was pleased to be sharing something of his with her. Whatever the reason for this, Asajj had the distinct impression that he valued her beyond the potential for another quick fuck in a storage room. It was unexpectedly touching.  
"Try to sleep, witch. We'll be home soon." he whispered.  
She nodded and lay her head on the flattish pillow, closing her eyes and almost purring in satisfaction. In that moment she could feel longing course through his being, and she knew could have pulled him onto the cot with her and he wouldn't have resisted. Her hand almost moved to grab his and guide him back to her, but she quickly repressed the impulse.  
She felt him leave, instead, felt the link snap as the physical distance between them increased. It left her oddly alone, almost bereft, and it irritated her immensely.  
She could bloody well do without him.  
She didn't need anyone. She was a warrior, a survivor. She was her own woman, and she needed a man about as much as a fish needed a speeder bike.  
It was the absolute truth.  
It didn't mean she could not want someone to be close to her, though.


	5. Fast Friends

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original Star Wars characters. I do own the OCs, though. I do not make a £ from this.**

Warning: bad language.

Flame all you want, I'm fireproof.

* * *

As he slammed a new power cartridge, one of the proper ones, in his semi-automatic blaster, the newly promoted Captain Garu Cato reflected, not for the first time in the last few days, that ending up on Naqdaa had possibly been the best thing that could have happened to his squadron.  
It was not as if he didn't feel sorry for his comrades who didn't make it. He was truly sorry about their passing, they had been like brothers and sisters to him, but even so, he couldn't stop thinking about the sheer magnitude of the opportunity the survivors had been presented with.  
They had been waiting for all their short lives to be able to show that, even though they were Unclaimed, they were worth something, apart from getting a rise out of Gunray with their mere presence.  
They had trained hard, harder than any other squadron, and finally all the effort, all the dedication had paid off.  
They had survived, where countless others, supposedly more worthy and all-round better than them, had died.  
They had fought under the two best commanders in the whole CIS army, they had fought hard, giving it everything they had, and they sure as hell had made an impression on their superiors.

And there they were, still at the base on Raxus, when the Fortressa had already been sent back to Cato Neimoidia.  
Back home they would have been housed in the shittiest quarters of the base and kept isolated, as if their Unclaimed-ness could contaminate the rest of the troops. Here on Raxus, instead, they had been quartered with the Raxian militia, and allowed unrestricted access to the common areas of the base, including the training grounds and the sports pitches.  
Only the previous night, they had been playing blaster-ball against a team of Raxian militiamen. They had been defeated, if only narrowly, but it had been a fantastic experience nonetheless. For the first time since the beginning of the war, they had truly felt part of something bigger than them, they had felt included in the life of the CIS Army.

On top of that, their provisional ranks had not been revoked yet. Garu imagined it would happen, sooner or later, but determined that he would make the best of the situation while it lasted. That included making sure that his comrades would be able to resupply with decent material, that Nyto would have access to proper medical supplies, and that his comrades didn't have to wait until late at night to train.  
When he had managed to book the shooting range for his squadron without anyone trying to bar him, he had felt like this was the kind of life they should have always lived.

Speaking of what, they still had half an hour to go, before they had to leave the floor to some guys from the Nimbus Commando for the last training slot before dinner.  
You should try to make the most of it, instead of reminiscing like an old man, he scolded himself.  
Sighing slightly, he gripped the stock of his blaster with both hands and planted his feet wide, sinking slightly into a standard firing stance.  
He sighted the target at the far end of the lane and took a deep breath, then squeezed the trigger several times before hitting the retrieval button. The target zipped towards him. Garu detached it from its support and examined it. Not bad, he told himself, fingering the cluster of holes around the left side of the target's supposed chest. He would never be as good as Auray, but he was pretty decent.

"Dreaming of becoming a sniper yourself?" Auray asked passing by his lane with a proper sniper rifle.  
"Are you going to train me?" he asked, teasingly.  
"I'm a hard taskmaster, Garu. Are you sure this is what you want?" Auray retorted with a wink and a smile.  
"Gods, no. I'll never be a good sniper. Can't concentrate that hard."  
"And I can't organise everything like you do. - she conceded - It's a pity you're not my trainee, though... I'd love to make you jump some hoops..." she added teasingly.  
"Ah... You must have been taking lessons from Commander Ventress..." Garu teased.  
Auray laughed and shook her head. "Maybe... But I could never pull off her outfits. I don't feel that confident in my femininity. - she replied - I'll stick to the uniform, if it's the same to you." she added.  
"You always look amazing, Auray." Garu said.  
"You're not too bad either, princeling." she replied, using his old nickname.  
"You've been talking to her a lot. I mean, to the Commander." Garu commented.  
Auray nodded. "She is one of the few female officers in the CIS. It's not like I have a huge choice of people to ask for guidance. - she said - And she's rather amazing, you have to admit that."  
Garu nodded. "If it had not been for her, we would have probably surrendered out of desperation." he admitted.  
"Well, our officers beat it. We were left behind to die. What were we supposed to do?" Auray asked, shaking her head.  
"Yeah, and in top of everything, it was our first time in combat. I was terrified, but she believed in us, and we started believing in ourselves." Garu continued.  
Auray frowned slightly at his words, setting the rifle down against the partition between his lane and the next.  
"I have the impression that it was more a matter of her not being prepared to let her plans go to waste, but in the end what matters is that now we know what we can do." she argued.  
Garu nodded again. "And now the Commander and the General know too. Even Dofine knows. We cannot be swept back under the carpet." he said.

"She wants to keep us." Auray revealed quietly.  
"They both want to keep us. Do you remember what the General said when we landed?" Garu asked. The sniper nodded.  
"If everything goes alright, we'll never be Unclaimed again." Garu concluded, feeling his heart pound at the mere thought.  
Auray smiled. "If you could choose, who would you rather claimed us?" she asked, elbowing him gently.  
"Can't we have both?" Garu retorted, making puppy eyes for a moment.  
Auray chuckled. "That would satisfy your bourgeois fantasy of a perfect family, won't it just? With the two of them playing Mommy and Daddy and us all in the role of kids..." she teased.  
Garu cracked up laughing. "How do you get these ideas, skyskin?" he asked, shaking his head.  
"I have eyes and my, how did you call that? Oh, yes, my "abnormal capacity for focusing on stuff". - she replied, mock-offended - I guess you didn't notice how those two interacted throughout the mission..."  
"Do you think?... I don't think it is so clear-cut. - Garu replied, mulling the idea over in his head - You were up top where Commander Ventress took off her skirt for the hand-to-hand fighting... The General looked like he was going to have a heart attack, but, hey, Van nearly had a faint at the sight, because all his blood had gone south, and even Nyto looked like he had a happy, and you know he is not much into girls. I don't thinks it actually means anything."

"Tush told me they were holding hands on the transport." Auray insisted.  
Garu shook his head. "We're gossiping like old fishmongers. - he commented, trying to change subject - Those two must have been working together for a while, and I would definitely hold Tush's hand even if I'm not remotely attracted to him. That's because he's my buddy. We fight together and stuff. We're like brothers."  
Auray gave him a skeptical look. "We'll see. - she conceded - What I know is that she is pretty miffed that he has not visited her at the infirmary yet."  
"As far as I know, he was called to Serenno the same night we landed here." Garu revealed in a whisper.  
"That's harsh." Auray commented.  
Garu shrugged. "The General doesn't actually have to sleep, they told me. Apparently, he hardly ever has downtime."  
"Poor bastard..." she deplored, shaking her head.  
Garu nodded and took a breath to comment, but his attention was captured by an odd group coming their way.

Nesh and Atinay were carrying an armful of gear, including a very vintage-looking rifle and a few Nar Shaddaa fire-bottles. Murko the technician followed them with an air of unease and slight alarm. It was enough to trigger an alarm in Garu's mind as well.  
"What the hell are you doing with this stuff?" he asked, barring their path.  
"Oh, it's just an experiment, nothing to worry about, Cap." Atinay replied.  
"That's exactly why I am worrying about it." Garu replied, crossing his arms over his chest.  
"We are just testing a theory. -Neshros explained - The General said you can increase the range of a fire-bottle with a slugthrower. We just want to figure out how it is done."  
Garu arched an eyebrow. "So that is a slugthrower?" he asked, waving a long-fingered hand towards the mechanical contraption.  
To his surprise, the reply came in Auray's voice. "It's a Czerka Outlands rifle. And unless they started making vintage models, it must be more than fifty years old. - she commented, almost with awe - Where did you find it?" she asked.  
Nesh shrugged. "We asked around the base. One of the IGBC officers at the canteen at lunchtime said they were selling some as brick-a-brac at the market just near the port and we bought it." he replied.  
"Well, we exchanged it for some Naqdaan fruit." Atinay corrected.  
"Can I see it?" Auray asked, extending a hand towards the rifle with an almost pleading expression.  
"Sure! Why not?" Atinay replied, pushing the rifle towards her.

Auray nodded in thanks and took it in her hands with an almost reverent expression, turning it this way and that to examine minute details of which none of the other Gunners had any idea.  
"It still looks perfect. All the mechanisms... and the bone inlays in the stock... - she declared after a moment - You two made a bargain. This is an amazing rifle. It is more than fifty years old, but if you keep it right, it will last a hundred more." she added, caressing the burnished metal of the barrel almost lovingly. Garu was starting to grow jealous of the rifle.  
"Wow! How do you know so many things about this stuff?" Atinay asked.  
"I learned to shoot with one of these when I was a child. - she replied, shrugging and looking down - It was my father's. He was a bounty hunter. Both him and my mum were mercs, actually. They died just before I got out of the village hatchery. They left me little, apart from his rifle, but I suppose it was enough. It kept me alive for years until I joined you guys." she continued quite sadly.  
"I suppose you can have this one, after we're done with it." Atinay offered, slightly alarmed by the sudden breaking of Auray's voice towards the end.  
"Really?!" she exclaimed, lifting her head and looking straight at him with gratitude and surprise.  
"Yeah, really. I mean, no probs, sis." Atinay replied, after a quick and silent consultation with Nesh.  
"Well, actually there is a significant chance that it will explode, if we do something wrong in the test." Murko chimed in.  
Auray's face fell almost comically. "What?!" she exclaimed, visibly agitated.  
"We're going to jury rig a cartridge with a holder for the bottles. - Murko explained - It is not 100% safe for either the equipment or us." he added, casting a dark look at his two partners in crime.  
"Then why did you choose an antique like this? Why not use a crappy rifle?" Auray protested, starting to breathe hard in agitation.  
"Well, it's not like we knew the diff! - Nesh retorted - I mean, this is supposed to be old crap no one actually wants anymore!"  
"You know what? It is not! These are useful weapons. - the sniper retorted, now quite irritated - With a sniper slugthrower rifle and a muffler you can put down a mark nearly a mile away and without making much noise."  
"You mean big things with looking glasses on top?" Murko asked.  
"Yes. - Auray confirmed - How do you know?"  
"The human who sold us this had one of those on display as well. It looked singularly unpractical." the technician replied.

Auray's reddish eyes widened dangerously. "Gods and demons! - she exclaimed - That's what emergency funds are for! Do you still have some bargaining fruit left over?" she asked the two artilliers and the tech.  
"Yes, but..." Atinay started.  
"No buts! Leave this stuff here and come with me. - she ordered - I'll find you a proper test subject or two. Hurry, before the market closes down for the day!"  
The trio turned towards Garu with nearly identical and rather scared looks.  
"What about our tests? We'll miss our time-slot!" Nesh asked.  
"Do as she says. I'll book another hour tomorrow. - Garu instructed, crossing his arms over his chest - I won't be the one to get between a woman and her rifle. And you?" he asked.  
The three promptly left their gear on the floor of the shooting range and trotted after Auray.

By dinnertime, the four of them had returned with a duffel bag full of slugthrower guns.  
"How did you get so many?" Tush asked. The gunman had been released from the infirmary in the morning and, apart from hobbling a bit, looked none the worse for the wear.  
"Murko repaired the merchant's droids." Nesh replied between, mouthfuls of Raxian vegetable mush. It lacked the spicy tang of a proper fermented salad, but it was pretty decent as human food went.  
"Yeah, all three of them." the technician grumbled, nursing a cup of caf between grease-stained hands.  
"And we gave him some more fruit." Atinay added glumly.  
"Oh, come on, guys, it was a pretty decent bargain. - Auray chimed in, momentarily looking up from the rifle she was polishing - This is good stuff. He must have gotten it from some disbanded mercenary group. It's all in reasonable state, even the oldest pieces."  
"And what are we supposed to do with them, now that we have so many?" Atinay asked, crossing his arms over his chest.  
Auray shrugged. "Go to the shooting range and learn to use them." she replied, unconcerned.  
"Eh, skyskin, but we already have our blasters." Garu objected, quirking an eyebrow in perplexity.  
"Oh. I didn't tell you that slugs cannot be deflected by lightsabers, did I?" Auray replied, blinking in confusion.  
"They what?" asked Tush, eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.  
All eyes were pointed on the sniper with interest.

"Well, is you swipe them with a lightsaber, they melt a bit, but they do not deviate. They are too heavy." Auray explained, darkening in embarrassment.  
"Gods and demons!" Garu exclaimed, rolling the implications of this fact around in his mind.  
"So you got us a load of Jedi-droppers?" Van asked, looking excited.  
"Well, you still have to get the right occasion to shoot at them, but, in theory, yes. It would be easier to drop a Jedi with one of these than with a blaster." she replied, pointing at their new weapons.  
There was a moment of awed silence. Everyone was too dumbstruck even to eat, which, for a bunch of Neimoidians meant that things were serious indeed.  
"Well, I thought that if we are to be the personal command of either the General or Commander Ventress, we will need them. I mean, the Jedi try to hunt them down all the time..." Auray continued.  
"Will you marry me, skyskin?" Garu blurted out in a fit of enthusiasm and affection.  
"What?! - Auray exclaimed, eyes wide as saucers - No way in hell! You are my superior, now! I don't sleep with my superiors!" she continued, deeply embarrassed, and threw a greasy cloth at his head.  
Van and Leth burst out laughing, the gits, and soon the whole table was chortling and guffawing at the two of them.  
"Hey! Cut it! I mean it!" Garu ordered, feeling like he would burn up in embarrassment.  
"Gods, bro, you should have seen your face..." Van said among residual bursts of hilarity.  
Garu sighed. Now that he was an officer he should keep a tighter rein on his tongue.

"Hey bros, we got company." Khod whispered, jerking his head towards a tall, rail-thin Muun and a group of bulkier Iotrans who were approaching their table. The Muun was wearing the colours of the Collections and Security Division of the IGBC and his left sleeve was marked with the grades of a Lieutenant.  
"That's the guy who told us about the rifles." Nesh added.  
The Muun stopped a couple of paces away from their table and dipped his elongated head in a sketchy bow, while the Iotrans fanned out in a semi-circle behind him  
"I see you have found your antiques." the Muun drawled, waving an elongated hand towards the weapons on the table.  
"Yes, thanks for the tip, sir." Nesh replied politely, dipping into a sketchy bow himself.  
The Muun's colurless lips curled into a faint smile, then he turned towards Garu and his brothers with an intense and inquisitive regard.  
"And you must be the three abandoned princes. - he said, pale eyes sparkling with interest - Your resemblance to your father is quite remarkable." he commented.

Van jumped to his feet, all thoughts of food forgotten.  
"First of all, we ain't princes of shit. We were out of the hatchery and on the streets before that bastard became Viceroy. - he clarified aggressively - Second, how the fuck you know this, loan shark?" he added, slamming a hand on the table.  
The Iotrans visibly bristled and zeroed in on Van. The Muun, however, seemed unconcerned. He idly raised a hand to stop them and turned towards Garu.  
"Is your brother always so charming?" he asked lightly.  
"Only when someone tries to mess around with us. - Garu replied dryly - How did you learn about us?" he insisted.  
The Muun shrugged. "It is rather in the face, as they say... - he drawled, waving his hand around again and pointedly looking at Leth, who darkened in shame - And I am a security officer. It is my business to know things about people."  
He made a small pause, shifting his aqueous gaze from Leth's face to Van's and then to Garu's.  
"I have always wondered why he didn't claim you..." he said in a conversational tone, as if he was talking about the weather.  
"That's your problem, not mine." Garu retorted heatedly, standing up to face the Muun and crossing his arms over his admittedly thin chest.  
The Muun smiled a bit more widely, looking oddly pleased with himself. Garu had to hold tight on his self-control to prevent himself from punching him. He wouldn't let that upper-class prick get under his skin and wreck his chances of a better life in the CIS Army.  
"Don't you and your men have anywhere else to be, Lieutenant?" he asked, taking an aggressive step towards him.  
"Not really. - the Muun replied - You're the talk of the base. I wanted to check for myself how some good-for-nothing rejects had managed to get the favour of the Supreme Commander..." he added with a smirk.  
"That's enough!" Garu exclaimed, taking another step towards the Muun, until they were practically chest-to-chest. The Iotrans started crowding them, ready to interfere on behalf of their leader, but the Gunners were not the kind of Neimoidians to back down from a fight and rose from the table to support their Captain.  
"Is it, little prince? Or what? - the Muun asked, still looking quite calm - I wonder if you have the guts to make good of your threats. I know how you Neimoidians are."  
Garu smirked and glared daggers at him. "Oh, but we came out wrong, didn't we? - he retorted, almost sweetly - Who knows what we might or might not do?" he added, feeling like he might just do something really, really stupid, like headbutting the bastard in the nose.  
"We've all survived on the streets, loan shark. Do yo think you frighten us?" Van added, cracking his knuckles ominously.

The Muun locked stares with Garu, as if daring him to look away first, and the two groups faced off in the middle of the canteen. The tension grew for long instants. Garu knew that everyone in there was looking at them, probably asking themselves what it was all about and whether they should dive for cover.  
The pale gaze of the Muun didn't waver. Garu felt his heart beat faster and faster.  
He should go for the leader first, and knock him down as fast as he could, he reflected, tensing up to ready himself for action. Then he could use the chairs on the Iotrans, maybe even use the slugthrowers as clubs, since they were not loaded yet.  
It was going to happen and it was going to happen soon, now, any moment, he thought.  
Instead the Muun smiled with satisfaction and raised a hand again to still his men. "I think this is enough. Your people are even better than I expected. My compliments and my apologies, Captain Garu Cato." he said politely, bowing again.

Garu blinked at him in utter confusion.

Apologies?

Compliments?

"What is all of this about, Lieutenant?" he asked.  
"Well, comrade, we had to make sure that you were worth the effort." one of the Iotrans replied with a shrug.  
Garu turned towards him so fast that he nearly gave himself a whiplash.  
"So this was a test?! - he exclaimed, incensed and still confused - Who do you think you are to decide that we need testing?" he protested.  
"I am Lieutenant Tulah Tefnakt, of the C&S." the Muun replied with another sketchy bow.  
"And I am Captain Roghan Silash, also of the C&S. - the Iotran chimed in amiably - And these are some of our men." he added, pointing a thumb backwards to the rest of the group.  
"As for the reason for all of this, the explanation is a bit more complicated and will require some time. - Tulah continued - If you allow us to sit down with you, we will give you a full account of our actions." he offered.  
Garu glared at him a moment more, then quickly exchanged glances with his brothers and Auray.  
"Agreed." he said finally, turning and walking stiffly to the table. It would take him some time to burn off the adrenalin of the near-fight. The Muun's words had hit too close to home. He would have to watch out for him.

"Start explaining." he demanded with a hard stare and a hard tone as soon as they were all seated.  
"Right... - Tulah acceded - First of all we have to ask you something. Rumour has it that you are going to be under the personal command of General Grievous. Is it true?" he asked with an oddly hopeful expression.  
Garu hesitated a moment, asking himself if it would be a good idea to let this person into his confidence after his display of duplicity. Then, why not? It wasn't as if these bloody rent collectors could do anything about it.  
"It is not confirmed, but it is probable. He told us so himself. Now the decision is in Dooku's hands." he replied.  
"And if not under him, we'll be serving under Commander Asajj Ventress." Auray added.  
"The Bald Witch..." Roghan commented.  
"Hey, watch your mouth!" Auray exclaimed, immediately incensed.  
"Just saying... that's how everyone calls her." the Iotran said defensively.  
"Well, we don't." Garu cut in.  
"Alright, alright, no need to get angry." the Iotran conceded.  
Tulah had been watching the whole exchange with a benevolent and patient little smile, as if he had been watching children bickering over a toy. Garu breathed deeply to keep his cool.

"Is he planning to replace the Magna Guards with you?" Tulah asked, as soon as the argument had died out.  
Garu shook his head. "He said something about forming commando squads like the ARCs." he replied.  
There was a surge of hushed comments and agitation among the Iotrans, until Roghan barked some order and tense silence fell on the group again.  
"Capital!" Tulah exclaimed, clapping his hands and bouncing on his seat. He looked genuinely excited for the first time.  
"We want in this project, Captain Garu Cato. You have to help us in. - Roghan said heatedly, leaning forwards on his chair - Me, Tulah and our men would gladly gamble our entire fortunes for the chance of serving under the General again."  
Garu blinked in confusion and reeled back.  
"Again?!" Dyoc exclaimed, sounding equally perplexed.  
Leth had taken his datapad out, instead, and was frantically searching for something in the jumble of official data available on the Shadowfeed.  
"Are you saying that you were under his direct command before?" Tush asked, looking slightly dismayed.  
Both the Muun and the Itorian nodded smugly.  
"They are shitting us! - Leth exclaimed - There is no record of any organic unit, much less of an IGBC unit, serving under him since he took command on Hypori." he declared, pushing the pad nearly into the Muun's face.  
"We've not yet fought with him in this war, it is true. - Tulah conceded - We served under him before the war, when he worked for IGBC. He was the head of the C&S until a couple of years ago." he revealed, pushing the pad away and sliding a static holo print towards Garu.

The Gunner picked it up and stared at it wide-eyed.  
Against a backdrop of concrete-and-transparisteel buildings, three men holding guns towered over some bound captives. Two of three men were Tulah and Roghan. The third in the middle was tall, wiry and red-skinned, and even through the faded printout exuded an air of strength and command. A cream-and-brown cloak streamed from his shoulders and his face was covered by a white mask decorated with red markings on the cheeks and over the brows. Golden eyes stared at the viewer with burning intensity.  
Mask, cloak and eyes should have been little in the way of identification, but in this case it was enough.  
"Holy Gods!" Garu exclaimed, dropping the printout as if it had burned him.  
Van picked it up and examined it for a moment, before passing it on. A low murmur passed through the Gunners as the picture made its way around the table.

"It was taken about a month before the accident. - Roghan revealed - We had just foiled a clever heist at the Corellia branch of the IGBC. It was his last big operation before... well..." he trailed off.  
"What happened? I mean..." Garu stammered, still shaken by the picture.  
It was easy to think that Grievous had always been like that, that he had no past, and to see an image of him like that, healthy and whole, made the Gunner feel nearly sick at the thought of what must have befallen him.  
Tranh had screamed when he lost a hand. How much more pain must the General have felt?  
Roghan shook his head. "Well, he was a sort of king of some famine-ridden shithole at the bad end of the galaxy, and his people needed him for some war, or something like that. - he explained - He quit the job to go back to fight with some of his mates, but his spaceship exploded as they were a few miles from home. At the time we were told there were no survivors. They all left quite big families behind, I was told." he concluded.  
"Gods and demons, it must have been terrible!" Auray commented, wringing her hands.  
"Yeah. You can bet on it." Roghan assented, nodding gravely.  
"Rumour has it that it was the Republic. - Tulah added in a whisper - San Hill, the chairman, had been meeting with him a lot in the months before the accident and everyone knew the old bat was big on the whole independence thing. The 'Pubs must have thought it a good move to take Grievous out before he could declare for the CIS as well." he added.  
"But why would the Republic care about the head of a private security company?" Leth asked, shaking his head.  
"Well, he is the best general of the CIS, is he not? - Tulah retorted - Believe me, he was as good before, if not better."  
"But he was going home!" Auray exclaimed, anguished.  
Tulah shrugged. "The 'Pubs might have decided to stay on the safe side."  
"Well, I am happy that their plan backfired, the bastards! - she continued, slamming her hand on the table - How can you do something like that to a person?! And what about all the people that were with him on the ship?!"  
"If you knew that by killing one person, plus collateral damage, you could spare the life of millions, wouldn't you press the trigger?" Tulah retorted impassively.  
That quieted her, but she kept shaking her head and clenching her fists.  
Of the whole lot of them, she was the only one whose parents genuinely loved her and would have kept her, if they had not died in a mission. They had left her letters dripping with affection, written in case they didn't make it to her seventh life-day, and she loved them with an intensity that was not diminished by the fact that she had never actually met them. That left her somewhat sensitive to stories like that.

"So you said that he was presumed dead." Garu said, steering the conversation back on track.  
Tulah nodded. "As far as I know, even his family thinks so, or at least that's what his oldest wife said when I met her on Muunlinst. - he replied - I suppose it is to protect them. The Republic nearly killed him and actually blew up all the people who were on the ship with him, just on the odd chance that he might join the CIS. After all he's done to them now, what do you think they might do to his family, if they find out he has one?" he argued, and the reasoning sounded unpleasantly convincing to Garu.  
"What indeed... - he commented with a shudder - But if it's such a big secret, how is it that you know?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow in skepticism.  
"We got eyes, don't we? And he's been all over the Shadowfeed for a while. - Roghan retorted decisively - He's plenty different, but not so different, if you know what I mean."  
"Yeah, you can't work with a man for nearly ten years without getting used to his quirks and moods. - another, older Iotran chimed in - And he might be a half-clanker now, but it's still him, no doubt. I'd bet all my savings on it." he added with iron certainty.  
"We want to be in this new regiment, comrade. We need to. We'll paint ourselves green to look like Neimoidians if need be. - Roghan added - He is still our commander and we are still his men. This is where we belong." he declared with convinction.

Garu kept quiet for a moment, letting everything sink in. Roghan and the rest of the Iotrans looked at him expectantly, as if he could make or break their dreams.  
"Look, people, we cannot do much for you. - he said, raising his hands in conciliation - I mean, you go and ask him, when he's back. The most we can do is ask with you."  
"Would you be alright with it?" Tulah asked.  
Garu shrugged. "We haven't got enough people to make a new regiment all by ourselves. He's going to have to open the recruitment regardless. - he argued - I suppose he'll be happy to have you back." he added with a weak smile.  
"And you are veterans, which always helps. - Tush added, scratching his chin pensively - We're all a bit green."  
Tulah burst into laughter. "Don't you say..." he teased.  
"Ah, that's not what I meant!" Tush protested, growing darker in embarrassment, so that the pale scar on his face stood out more in contrast.  
"Don't mind Tulah, comrade, he's like that with everyone. - Roghan advised - I've tried to break him out of the habit..."  
"And he means literally break him..." another Iotran chimed in, laughing.  
"Well, it didn't work anyway." Roghan concluded.  
"Don't say so, comrade. At least I got much better at hand-to-hand combat." Tulah said with his usual small smile.  
"So we are agreed? - the Muun then asked, turning towards Garu - Will you support our application to enlist in your new unit?"  
Garu turned towards his men, his brothers and sisters. Tush nodded. Auray nodded. Van and Leth, still piqued, shrugged. One by one, all gave their assent or signalled their indifference.  
"Agreed." Garu said finally. The C&S people sighed collectively in relief.  
"But if I hear anyone commenting about Gunray or about the fact that we are Unclaimed, I'll break their faces, understood?" Van threatened, waving a knobbly fist in the air.  
"He'll do it, no mistakes. He was into prize-fighting quite a bit as a kid." Garu warned.  
"Alright, alright. We won't talk about it no more." Roghan conceded.  
Van nodded, satisfied if still a bit irritated.  
"I suggest we seal the deal with a handshake." Tulah proposed, offering his pale hand to Garu.  
The Gunner grabbed it and shook it vigorously, then shook Roghan's, while the Muun shook Auray's, then Van's.

"It's done then. Thank you, comrades. It means a lot to us." Tulah said, after the handshake-fest had finished.  
"It's alright. Don't mention it. We haven't done anything yet." Garu said feeling slightly self-conscious.  
"I think we should commemorate our deal. - Roghan proposed - I know there is a very nice club next to the base. We should go and have a blast!"  
he exclaimed.  
"Yeah, it would be nice... but we're all out of funds at the moment. We invested them all in equipment." Garu said, gesturing towards the slugthrowers and feeling his face burn in shame.  
"Ah, don't worry, grub. - Roghan reassured, slapping him on the back - It's on us. What's the point of getting an obscenely high salary, if you don't spend it on booze and parties?" he laughed.  
Garu smiled wanly, slightly taken aback by the boisterous officer.  
"That's mighty nice of you!" Van exclaimed instead, suddenly reconciled to the existence of the Iotran captain.  
Roghan laughed again. "Let's get ourselves a fresh start, comrades! Come, let's enjoy life while it lasts!" he proposed, rising from the chair.  
His proposal was saluted by a communal cheer from both groups. Garu felt his head spin from how fast the situation had evolved, but decided that it would be pointless to row against the flow.  
He briefly caught Tulah's eye among the confusion. The Muun sighed and rolled his eyes, spreading his arms in impotence as if to say that it was out of his hands now.  
Garu couldn't help but smile, and Tulah smiled in return.  
It would be an interesting evening.


	6. Returning

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original Star Wars characters. I do own the OCs, though. I do not make a £ from this.**

Warning: bad language and mentions of sex and child abandonment/abuse.

Flame all you want, I'm fireproof.

* * *

It was already quite late at night when a Belbullab fighter requested permission to land at the military spaceport on Raxus Secundus.  
The runway personnel motioned it towards a berth close to the entrance of the base proper, asking themselves who the pilot might be. Belbullabs were not that common around Raxus, but they were insanely good ships and that one even looked like a custom job, designed for speed and power.  
"That dude must know how to fly. - one of the runway technicians commented to his colleague, who was new to the job - See how he's keeping it in line smoothly? Oh, and he's hovering before landing! That's sweet!" he added enthusiastically.

The fighter stopped in the berth and the engines had barely shut down when the cockpit opened and a bulky silhouette jumped to the floor.  
"It's the General!" the more experienced technician whispered, backpedaling in fear and alarm.  
The rookie stared in awe for a moment at the strange, droid-like figure as he retrieved something from the cockpit and shut the compartment closed.  
He was fascinated. The General didn't look like a person, not much, but if power could take a material shape, it wouldn't be much different from him.  
"Are you going to need it again soon, sir? - he asked, unthinking, as the cyborg was turning to leave - Do you want me to wash it?"  
The General turned back towards him, golden eyes blazing and slightly shining in the low light.  
The rookie felt a shiver run through him and heard his older colleague curse under his breath. Surely the General couldn't be mad at him for just speaking to him, or could he?  
"Give it a scrub, kid, but woe to you if I find a single scratch. Understood?" the General asked. His voice was deep and rough and lifelike enough for the rookie to notice that it was synthetic.  
"Yessir! - the boy replied, jumping to attention - I'll be as prudent as a maiden on her wedding night!"  
The General stared at him with an odd expression for a moment, then made a strange sound, something that sounded like a cross between a cough and a bout of laughter.  
"See that you do, kid. See that you do..." he said and stalked away, shaking his head andmuttering something under his breath.  
Rookie watched him disappear into the base, feeling oddly buoyant and proud of himself.

His older colleague cuffed him soundly around the back of the head as soon as the cyborg was out of sight and earshot.  
"Hey! What was that for?!" Rookie protested, rubbing his stinging neck.  
"Are you fucking crazy?! - the older man exclaimed - That was General Grievous!"  
"Yeah, I had that figured out already, than you very much. - Rookie retorted sarcastically - There are not many seven-feet-tall cyborgs running around this place."  
The older man shook his head. "Whatever came into your mind to try and chat him up?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.  
Rookie shrugged. "Hey! What's the matter?! We chat up all pilots! They land and we go like: how was the flight, can we help, need something? It's part of the service. " he retorted.  
"Not with him." the older man insisted.  
"And why?" Rookie asked, frowning in confusion.  
"Because... because he is the General! Don't you see the kriffing difference?!" the older man replied, evidently uncomfortable.  
Rookie shook his head. "You're scared of him." he realised.  
"You are too. And if you aren't you should be. That thing... it is a monster." the older man argued defensively.  
"I am scared. And _he _is weird. And scary. - Rookie admitted - But _he _is the guy who is out there winning the war for us. The least I can do is be nice with _him_ when _he_ lands here." he continued, stressing the pronouns and crossing his arms on his chest. He had never realised that the guy who had been partnered with him was a speciesist. Cyborgs were not actually a species, but whatever.

"I will wash that fighter until it shines. And if you don't like this, you can shove your opinion up your jumper, alright?" Rookie concluded, walking stiffly towards the service area in a quest for a bucket, some soap and a hose.  
"Knock yourself out, bleedingheart. You'll wish you had listened to me when that thing decides to turn upon you." the older man called out as he walked away to the cafeteria.  
Rookie flipped him the bird and let him go without even turning back.  
"Speciesist dickhead..." he muttered under his breath.  
He picked up his gear, including the softest washcloths he could find in the storeroom, and carried it to the Belbullab.  
As he started to work the soapy water to a lather over the nose of the craft with gentle, even movements, Rookie replayed the moments just past.  
He would give the General a top-notch service, he vowed, not because he might break him in two if he didn't (which was also true), but because that's what he was payed to do, because that was what he did for everyone else. He'll show those dickheads how a true professional worked.

Despite the late hour, Asajj Ventress wasn't feeling even a bit sleepy.  
After nearly a week of forced inactivity, her leg was nearly completely healed and she was feeling bored and restless.  
At first, she had been determined to take advantage of the respite given to her by the enforced bed rest. She had put on the most comfy clothes among the few items she had stashed on Raxus for emergencies, an old hoody a couple of sizes too big for her and a pair of hotpants, and had downloaded quite a few of the books she had been wanting to read in the previous months, but had never managed to.  
At the moment, she was sitting cross-legged on the bed with her datapad and a cup of sweetish herbal infusion, and was trying read what was supposed to be the best historical novel of the year, a blend of drama and adventure set against the backdrop of the Sith Wars, complete with elaborate and slightly improbable fights and equally acrobatic sex scenes. It was enjoyable, even if a bit preposterous here and there, but her mind refused to focus on the reading.  
Too many thoughts were vying for attention in her mind, distracting her.

First of all there were the Gunners, which at the moment had defaulted to her command. They seemed to be doing well for themselves at the base, according to what she had heard from Garu and Auray. They trained, they socialised with the other troops, and their officers dropped in for regular reports.  
Auray, the lead sniper, dropped in more frequently than most, seeking advice and female solidarity, and Asajj had to admit that she had taken a liking to the girl.  
It was nice to be able to talk about what it meant to be a woman and a soldier in the CIS, about the people who didn't take you as seriously as your male colleagues, about the perverts who tried to cop a feel in the queue at the canteen, that sort of stuff.  
Asajj admittedly had to swallow less of that crap because she was a Commander and a Dark Acolyte, but she knew that her sexuality or lack thereof was a common topic of discussion, and Grievous had recently confirmed that some people thought that she had got her commission lying on her back.  
There was not much she and Auray could do, apart from standing strong, and strategically breaking some noses and assorted bones to remind the pigs that they were not to be trifled with.  
Auray was a talented girl, a fighter, and Asajj actually saw a lot of herself in her, but she was not Forceful. She liked the girl even more for that, because that meant that they would never be rivals, that there was no risk that one day Auray would try to take her out to pave her own career. Asajj found that she enjoyed the fact that she could actually relax around her and just talk, and sometimes joke, and even giggle like a teenager on occasions.

Maybe she shouldn't, but she liked this new development almost as much as _that_ other one.  
Speaking of what, that crazy lump of metal had disappeared for the entire week without even dropping her a message on the Shadowfeed.  
So much for his social ability, she sighed. Eventually, he'd get in touch, she told herself.  
In the meantime, she'd take command of the Gunners and start training them. First come, first served, as they say.  
In fact, she was glad he had not shown up yet. She didn't want to meet him again from a position of disadvantage.  
He'd probably be back in tip-top shape by now, and she was still slightly sore, shabbily dressed and hooked up to an antibiotic drip, and on top of everything, her blasted hair had started to grow out again, and she hadn't managed to shave it back into oblivion yet. It was just a layer of brownish fuzz a few millimeters long, but she hated it.  
It made her look, soft. It made her look like an idiot.

No, she would be at her best, next time, back to full health, head freshly shaven and dressed to her nines, and she'd stand up to him on an equal footing, or near enough.  
And then she'd make him admit that he needed her, she'd make him beg and come for her.  
She'd hear him scream for her and she'd know she _owned_ him. Until she could actually kick his ass on the training grounds, she'd take her victories where she could.

That was a nice perspective on the future, she thought with satisfaction, feeling her pulse quicken and her cheeks colour. If she closed her eyes she could still see him lying beneath her and looking lost and gone with pleasure. She had made him look like that, and it had made her feel _good_. So good that she could barely wait to have another go at him.  
How messed up was her life that fantasizing about having sex with a guy who didn't even have any man-bits was one of the highlights of her evening?

Someone knocked at the door.  
By the hour, Asajj judged that it must be Auray. She had taken the habit of visiting her comrades and her after whatever post-dinner social activity the Gunners had managed to arrange.  
"Come in!" she called out, trying to blot her previous thoughts out of her mind and calm down.  
It was then that she remembered that Auray had called in earlier, saying that she and the rest of the Gunners would be going to some club with some people from the IGBC.  
"Who could it be, then?" she asked herself.

The door opened and, just because if things can go wrong, they will, standing in the doorway was none other than Grievous, looking his usual ominous self with a new cloak and a longish bundle clutched in one hand.  
Asajj stared at him in confusion and incredulity for an instant, thinking furiously whether she should brave the situation with nonchalance, try to hide, or shove him out of the room with a Force-push.  
He just stood there looking at her in silence, taking in every detail of her bedraggled state, and her embarrassment grew with every passing second. The last option was winning her lightning-quick internal debate when he finally spoke.  
"I... I suppose this is a bad moment. - he said, looking tense and embarrassed as well - I'll come back tomorrow." he added, rather wistfully and started to back away.  
As he turned, his cloak shifted and she saw that the tarp he had used as an improvised cover for the damage to his chest was still in place. Now that she was looking for the signs, she saw that he was still scratched all over and spattered with all sorts of fluids like he had been after the battle. That made her feel better about her own condition and generally more magnanimous.  
"No, wait! - she called out - I wasn't doing anything vital. I wouldn't mind a quick chat, if you're not too tired." she added quickly and nonchalantly.  
She was bored, and a bit of verbal sparring with her favourite rival seemed like a good plan.  
He stopped mid-turn and turned back towards her. "Ah... Alright." he said, rather hesitantly, and softly clanked back into the room.  
Asajj noticed that he was hobbling slightly, even if he had not after the battle.

"What happened to your leg?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.  
"Dooku. - Grievous spat - He was not pleased about the whole Naqdaa incident."  
"So he thrashed you..." she concluded.  
Grievous shot her a dark look then nodded. "Someone should tell him the difference between training and punishment." he growled.  
"To a Sith, the difference is labile."she retorted.  
Grievous huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.  
"Did he also forbid the Geonosians to fix you?" she asked again.  
Grievous shook his head. "They took two days to figure out how to fix this, before they realised they didn't have the required parts. - he explained, gesturing angrily - They'll have to manufacture them from the blueprints. It'll take a while." he concluded with a sigh.  
"Well, at least you'll get downtime." Asajj said cheerfully.  
"Hardly. I have too many things to do. There are the Gunners to train, and they finally assigned me a flagship." he said, getting more cheerful towards the end.  
"Really?" she asked politely. He had been ship-hopping for a while, since the Jedi blew up the Malevolence, and she agreed that it was rather undignified for the Supreme Commander.  
Grievous nodded. "A Neimoidian cruiser/destroyer. She is a beauty, you'll see her when she lands here in a couple of days." he explained.  
Asajj nodded politely. She knew her starfighters, but anything bigger than a shuttle was more or less the same to her, as long as it worked and got her where she wanted to go.  
"And why are you not on it for the maiden voyage?" she asked.  
Grievous shrugged. "The official maiden voyage will start from here. It's all propaganda for the Senate of the Confederacy." he explained dejectedly, setting the parcel down on the bedside trolley and starting to pace back and forth in front of the bed.  
"Well, General, we need to keep the morale of the civilians up, don't we?" Asajj teased.  
"Their morale would be equally boosted if I killed a few more republicans. - he retorted grumpily - All this socialising nonsense infuriates me."  
"And you can't even help yourself to the free food..." she commented.  
Grievous shot her a dark look and continued to pace.

"Well, it's kind of openly recognised. Everyone goes to those events mainly for the free food and drinks." Asajj continued cheerfully, glad that she had found something to tease him about.  
Grievous sighed. "Yes, I wish I could get drunk myself. The ordeal would be easier to bear." he confessed.  
"Oh, come on, don't be so negative. You'd be the star of the event." Asajj said.  
"It is a role I'd rather leave to someone else." he retorted, starting to sound angry.  
"But you get to be rude and scary with a lot of important people." she insisted, judging that it was still safe to do so.  
Grievous shook his head. "Meagre satisfaction." he replied. He kept on pacing and it was really irritating her.

"Oh, would you please sit down! You're getting on my nerves!" she exclaimed.  
Grievous halted suddenly and blinked a few times. "Excuse me?" he asked.  
"Sit down. Just do it. - she repeated forcefully, pointing to the chair left in the room for visitors - Do you realise how irritating it is to talk to someone who keeps in going back and forth like that?"  
Grievous eyed the chair sceptically. "That won't hold me." he protested.  
"Then sit here on the bed. - she offered - Or anywhere. As long as you stay still." she quickly added, realising that she had just made an incautious opening move.  
Grievous looked at her questioningly. "Are you certain it is a good idea?" he asked.  
They were both shielding hard, but Asajj had the impression that his question didn't have much to do with the structural stability of the furniture.  
Asajj decided to ignore the subtext, for the moment, and nodded.  
"It seems quite sturdy." she declared.  
Grievous sighed again and took an oddly hesitant step towards the bed, then lifted his cloak out of the way and gingerly sat down at the far end. The bed creaked a bit, but held.  
Now they were sitting just an arm-length apart, and Asajj could tell that it was making him tense.  
He was facing away from her and staring at the ground as if it was very interesting, only to cast her quick, intense glances out of the corner of his eye. Point for her for making him even more fidgety and awkward.

"Do you know what is the problem with those events? I can't stand all that people staring at me, or pretending I'm not even there..." he said very quietly after a long pause.  
"They are a bunch of blinkered idiots. The first time I went to a party with Dooku, a Senator convinced herself that I was some sort of paid escort." Asajj revealed, trying to cheer him up.  
Grievous turned towards her with an amused glint in his eyes.  
He caught a breath to speak, but she cut him off before he could utter a single word.  
"If you are thinking about commenting on my clothes, think again." she warned.  
"Of course not, gods forbid! - he replied, still playfully - I was just thinking that maybe she was attracted to you and wanted a private performance..." he added with what amounted to a smirk.  
Asajj struggled to find a witty retort and his nearly-smile widened. She glared at him. Now they were even again.  
"Well, I have bedded a few women in my life, but she was not my type." she finally said with as much nonchalance as she could muster.  
His eyes went so wide that Asajj thought she could see some white around the gold. All in all, he looked like his jaw was going to fall off in astonishment, except for the fact that he didn't have one, because it must have been blasted off in the accident, and that wasn't very fun at all. At any rate, she had scored a tie-breaker with that riposte.

"Was... was she not pretty enough for you?" he asked after a moment, weakly trying to get back in the game.  
Asajj shrugged. "She was boring. I like challenges." she said coolly, pleased that she had managed to keep the advantage.  
"So do I." he agreed, briefly making eye contact with her and nodding almost imperceptibly to acknowledge her victory in this round.  
Asajj allowed herself to bask in that small victory for a moment.

"So when is the event supposed to be?" she asked, steering the conversation back on the original track.  
"A couple of weeks. Maybe a month. - he replied with a shrug - She needs to be staffed and crewed, and I am having her modified by the shipyards here on Raxus."  
"What for?" she inquired.  
"I'll have them take out some of the thrusters and add some more hangar space. - he explained - She was never going to win any races anyway, and I'd rather have local numerical superiority any day." he added.  
Asajj nodded. "Sounds sensible. Are you having them add some more punch as well?" she asked.  
"Of course I am!" he retorted with his customary arrogance.  
"How silly of me to ask... - she said in a deadpan tone - Does your new toy have a name already?"  
"Invisible Hand." Grievous replied with a minute shake of his head.  
"That's positively tame for you! - Asajj teased, quirking an eyebrow - Judging from your other ships, I would have thought you'd go for Bonebreaker, or Smasher, or I-kriffing-hate-you-all..."  
"Haha. Very funny. - he commented darkly - I didn't get to name her. She came with that name already. She was supposed to be Gunray's." he revealed.

"What?!" Asajj exclaimed. It seemed like now it was her turn to look flabbergasted. "You stole Gunray's ship?" she asked.  
"I didn't steal it. I requisitioned it with Dooku's explicit permission." he clarified.  
"Yes, I am sure that will make a lot of difference to Gunray." she commented.  
"That's the beauty of it. - he admitted cheerfully - The Federation was going to launch three sister ships and Dooku told me to pick one for my flagship. I just picked the one with the biggest engines and the least silly name." he explained.  
"Which coincidentally happened to be the one Gunray would have picked for himself." Asajj added.  
"Sometimes you just get that lucky..." he said with a small laugh.  
"And Gunray coincidentally happens to be an arrogant bastard who cannot recognise talent in any shape or form. Not even in his children..." Asajj continued.  
"His children?" Grievous repeated.  
"Yes. The three Catos, Garu, Van and Leth. They are his. - she explained - It's rather obvious, I think. Leth looks like his younger clone."  
"I had noticed. - Grievous replied dryly - I just thought they were, I don't know... illegitimate, or the result of a drunken night in town. I thought that he just didn't know about them."  
"Oh yes, a woman would need to be quite drunk to... Ah, I don't even want to think about it! - Asajj commented, grimacing - And no. They are legitimate, from his first wife. Well, they were legitimate, until he disclaimed them."  
"He did what?!" Grievous exclaimed tensing up as if ready to spring.  
"He disclaimed them. - Asajj repeated - He forsook legal custody and all rights on them. It basically means that he abandoned them." she explained.  
Grievous shook his head and looked away from her. "How can anyone do something like that? How?" he growled, clenching his fists and nearly trembling in rage.

And how did that happen, Asajj asked herself. And how could that not happen, she told herself a moment later, remembering the memory they had shared on the Fortressa. A man who loved his son so deeply could never understand the Neimoidians' attitude to parenting. Even she struggled, and she was quite advanced on the path of the Dark Side.  
"I don't know. - she admitted - Auray told me that they leave their kids until they turn seven in some sort of schools where the weak are weeded out. Apparently Garu and his siblings found a way to cheat the system and leave as few of their batch behind as they could manage." she explained calmly. The rational exposition seemed to snap Grievous out of his fit of fury, or at least give him a bit of clarity.  
"And Gunray didn't like it." he interjected.  
"No, he didn't. - she confirmed - Neimoidians value individualism and ruthlessness above all. They would make good Sith, if they weren't so coward." she added dispassionately.  
"Gods... I would never... I could never... - Grievous whispered, shaking his head again - Could you do something like that to your own flesh and blood?" he asked, turning back towards her with an almost pleading expression.

Asajj hesitated for a moment. Her first instinctive reaction was to say yes, of course, and why not? She was a Sith, or nearly so, and she had done worse than that to a lot of people. However she paused for a moment to imagine that she had a child of her own, something small and helpless that relied only on her.  
She had never wanted children, but she could clearly imagine a tiny, white-skinned girl with a dusting of brown hair on her head, could almost feel her light weight in her arms and smell her scent.  
She tried to imagine abandoning her, leaving her on a street and walking away. She _could_ imagine it, but at the same time she remembered the pain she had felt when her adoptive parents and then her master died, the hopelessness and the loneliness.  
How could she inflict that kind of pain on purpose on someone who loved her and had never done anything wrong to her?

"No... No I could not." she admitted in a whisper.  
"Thank the gods... - Grievous whispered with evident relief - That would be... That is where I draw the line." he added more decisively  
"At harming children? Really? - she teased, slightly put off by his bout of righteousness - You might want to remember that, next time you command an orbital bombardment..."  
"At harming your own. - he retorted, sitting up straighter and glaring at her - Your children, your soldier, your people. Anyone who is under your charge. Everyone who trusts you and depends from you." he added, holding her gaze.  
"Yeah, tell that to the B1s you regularly destroy..." she attacked, crossing her arms below her breasts and quirking an eyebrow in disbelief.  
"Droids have no souls. They are programmed to obey to certain people. They cannot give you their loyalty and their trust. - he replied angrily, eyes narrowed to thin golden slits- They are objects, not people, and I don't owe them more loyalty than I would give a washing machine."  
"I don't break my washing machine when I'm pissed off." Asajj retorted.  
"Your washing machine cannot fuck up your campaign plans with its incompetence. - he counterattacked - Even if it does shrink your clothes something terrible..." he added with a sort-of grin.  
Without even thinking, Asajj Force-pushed him off the edge of the bed, not very hard, but still hard enough to send him sprawling to the floor with a metallic clang.  
"That was a very bad idea..." she told herself a moment later, imagining that in a moment he would spring back up, as pissed off as a rampaging rancor, however the moment passed and nothing happened.

Asajj crawled to the end of the bed and cautiously peered down.  
Grievous was sitting on the floor with his eyes tightly closed and his hands clenched into fists but still trembling slightly. He was taking deep, deliberate breaths, trying to calm himself down, and Asajj could almost feel the heat of his anger slowly cool down. She watched him struggle with himself in worried fascination, wondering why he was making the effort.  
She didn't really know how long she had been watching him before he opened his eyes and fixated his still angry gaze on her.  
"Are you still very mad?" she asked.  
Grievous took another deep breath. "I'm trying not to. - he replied in a strained, clipped tone - I deliberately provoked you, and you didn't really harm me." he said as if trying to convince himself.  
"And I don't harm my own." he added with another deep breath.  
"I am not yours." Asajj retorted automatically, not thinking about the consequences.  
Grievous rose to his knees and grabbed the edge of the bed, so that his masked face was very close to hers. "You are. - he growled - We fight together, side by side on the battlefield."  
Asajj didn't know if it pleased her or not that he had not mentioned that other aspect of their relationship. "And does that make me yours?" she asked quietly.  
"Yes." he replied defiantly.  
The tension that had always permeated all their encounters was back in full force, making the air buzz around them. Once they had had just one way of dispersing it, violence, but now Asajj understood that situations like these could be just as easily tipped towards a much more pleasurable outcome.

"I guess that makes you mine as well..." she whispered, laying a hand on the side of his mask and closing the distance between them, so that her forehead rested against his.  
He let out a shuddering sigh and his whole frame trembled minutely. Asajj could feel his anger fade into the background as quickly as it had built up.  
"Yes..." he whispered, without any hesitation, and, even without any mind-tricks, she could feel that he craved that connection, that he wanted, no, _needed_ to mean something to her.  
Asajj sighed as well, closing her eyes and feeling a strange sort of warmth flood her. Almost without thinking, she briefly rubbed her cheek against his mask in what had already become their shorthand for a kiss. She allowed herself to bask in that feeling for another moment before she pulled away from him and sat back on the bed.  
Grievous looked at her with slightly unfocused eyes for a moment, then blinked and shook his head and was back to his normal, hyperfocused self.

"So the Gunners are also part of your own, now?" Asajj asked, patting the bed to invite him to sit down again.  
"Part of our own, witch. - Grievous replied eagerly accepting the invitation - I won't have time to look after their training as they would need, and you're the best infiltrator in the CIS. Why don't we split their command?" he proposed.  
"Are you kidding me?" she asked.  
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Grievous retorted archly.  
"Why would you do something like this?" she insisted.  
"Because you are a good warrior and they like you. I think it's reason enough, but if you don't want them..." he replied with a shrug.  
Asajj looked at him wordlessly for an instant. So many thoughts piled up in her head that she couldn't bring herself to verbalise any.  
"Of course I want them! - she managed to exclaim - But... Does Dooku know about this? Is he alright with this?" she added anxiously.  
Grievous nodded. "I managed to convince him that it would help the propaganda to have more organic troops engaged on the main fronts. - he explained - I am convinced he thinks it will fail, but he gave me the go-ahead."  
"And what about my role? Is he OK with that?" Asajj asked again.  
"He insisted that you should participate in the project. - Grievous confirmed - I even pretended to protest but he was adamant." he added with an almost-smirk.  
Asajj glared at him for a moment. She understood why he had protested, but part of her was irritated nonetheless.  
"And how do we proceed then?" she asked.  
"First you get yourself out of here. - Grievous replied - Do you have an office here at the base?"  
Asajj shook her head. "I barely have a decent room."  
"Then I'll find one. - he said - We have plans to make. And we still have to write a joint report about the Naqdaa debacle. Dofine has sent me the contact of his lawyer. We'll make the deserters pay." he added heatedly, clenching a fist.  
"That sounds like a plan. - Asajj agreed - I should be discharged by tomorrow midday."  
"Excellent. Shall we meet after lunch?" Grievous proposed.  
"Let's make it around four in the afternoon. - Asajj replied - I need to freshen up a bit." she added gesturing towards her head.  
"Ah. About that..." he began.  
"You're not allowed to comment." Asajj cut in.  
Grievous raised his hands in mock-surrender. "I'm not going to say a word." he declared, and suddenly, before she could react, he had placed a hand on her head and was stroking the blasted fluff.

Asajj froze, repressing the impulse to throw him into the wall. His touch was surprisingly light and it sent a pleasant tingle down her spine, but obviously, as soon as she relaxed, he took his hand away.  
"You have been pushing your luck, clanker boy." she hissed, doubly irritated.  
"I know, but sometimes I can't help it. - he admitted - I had been thinking about doing that since I set foot in the room."  
"Yes because it is so funny, eh?" she asked.  
Grievous shook his head. "It's not funny. It was... unexpected. - he tried to explain - I wanted to know how it felt... how you felt when you are like this."  
"What about asking?" she hissed.  
"You would probably have said no just to spite me. And you didn't dislike it." he retorted.  
"Maybe, but that's not how it works." Asajj declared, crossing her arms below her breasts.  
"And how does it work?" he asked, deliberately making eye contact.  
"You don't assume. You ask." she said sternly.

Grievous nodded. "May I?" he asked.  
Asajj held his gaze for a moment and considered saying no, but the truth was that she didn't really mind.  
"Knock yourself out. - she replied - By tomorrow it'll be gone." she added with a twinge of killjoy satisfaction.  
His hand was back on her hair in an instant, lightly grazing the strands, but without touching her scalp.  
"I bet you can't really feel anything." she provoked, repressing a shiver, however she couldn't help the way her eyes fluttered and her voice sounded ever-so-slightly breathy.  
"I can, barely. It feels... soft." he replied quietly. His eyes were closed, as if visual inputs could distract him from what he was sensing, and Asajj could tell that he was frowning slightly in concentration, unwilling to miss even a fraction of that unexpected experience.  
"I am not a soft woman." Asajj declared defensively, even as she involuntarily leaned into his touch.  
"I know. You are a warrior and a leader." he whispered heatedly and his touch became a bit firmer, fingertips grazing her scalp and sending little shivers down her spine.  
Between his touch and his words, Asajj couldn't help but let a small contented sound escape her lips. She had never thought that something so... well... chaste could feel so good, and that he could be so patient and gentle.

By the time he started to caress her hair against the grain and trying to tangle his fingers in it on her nape, she was tingling all over and barely preventing herself from moaning out loud. Her eyes were squeezed shut but she could feel the weight of his gaze on her face, and she could feel his breathing pattern change with excitement. He was looking at her and he liked what he saw.  
"Like hell I am going to shave my head again!" she though.  
If this was what she could expect on a regular basis, she was going to let it grow out on the top and back in a lazyhawk, like when she was younger.  
She could imagine him grabbing her by the hair on her nape as she rode him, pulling with just the right amount of force to make her skin erupt in goosebumps and her pulse quicken with need.  
"Just like now..." she realised.  
She felt his breath on her skin, and she hoped, wished, _needed_ for him to kiss her. If she jumped his bones on the bed, the damned thing would probably end up wrecked, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She was getting out of there the following morning, and she could sleep one night on the floor if that meant relieving the need that clawed at her whole being.

And then suddenly his fingers found _that_ spot on the nape of her neck and she gasped loudly, shuddering helplessly and nearly collapsing on the bed in a boneless heap. At that point, display or weakness or not, she didn't care if he topped her, for once, and fucked her bloody. Deep in a corner of her mind she even hoped that he did, but her most coherent thought was just that she needed to have sex with him more than she needed anything else.  
She heard him growl, low and dangerous, and let her body relax, accepting whatever might happen as long as it was sex, but instead of going ahead and ravishing her, he let his hand fall as quickly as if he had been burned.  
The bed shifted with a loud groan and he was back on his feet and moving towards the door before she could figure out what was happening.  
"I... I have to go. I'll see you at four then." he said, and, as suddenly as he had arrived, he was out.

Dazed and still intoxicated by the things he had made her feel, Asajj barely had the time to figure out what was happening before the door closed behind his back.  
Alone in the infirmary room, she blinked and gaped, confused and almost unable to believe her senses. Disbelief quickly dissipated, leaving room for disappointment and anger.  
What had possessed him to just run away like that, as quickly as from a lost battle? And just as she was offering herself to him like one of those weak women from the eight o'clock HoloNet serial!  
"What did I do wrong?" she asked herself. She felt rejected and it hurt, and the fact that her whole body still ached for him made her humiliation all the more bitter.  
"Bloody clanker!" she cursed, biting her lip no longer to mute her whimpers, but rather to stave off impending tears.  
He'd been so much in a hurry to leave that he had left his parcel behind on the trolley, a piece of cloth loosely wrapped around two slightly knobbly and oblong objects. The mere sight of something that belonged to him was enough to send her to new heights of fury.  
"You fucking bastard!" she screamed, grabbing the bundle and throwing it as hard as she could against the door. The contents clanged with a metallic sound against the panel, bouncing to the floor.  
She hoped it was something fragile, something he would need soon and without which he would be in dire straits. She was going to wreck it, to break it in tiny, useless pieces, she vowed, using the Force to pull away the cloth bundled around the contents.

Wrapped in it were two lightsaber hilts. Asajj froze and her hold on the Force momentarily dissipated.  
She knew them.  
They were...  
No, it couldn't be... It just could not. Her worse threats had not been enough to convince him to give them back to her. Dooku's intervention had solved nothing.  
And yet those two hilts couldn't be anything but the one she had built for herself when she was still a Padawan, and her master's.

Asajj lifted them up reverently and held them to the light.  
Yes, it was them, there was absolutely no doubt. Her hands knew them even better than her eyes did, and they fit in her palms like the new ones Dooku had given her never could. She caressed their smooth, ridged surfaces with trembling fingers, her vision clouded by tears.

That underhanded bastard... she thought, feeling her thoughts about him soften immediately. He had given them back to her without telling her anything.  
Did that have anything to do with his quick retreat? Did he leave like a thief in the night because he felt awkward about it?  
Even with his earlier perplexing and kriffing irritating behaviour, now she would have to thank him, she thought.  
That should have chafed, but all irritation was swamped within moments by the relief of having been given back her only links to a happier and more innocent past, and by the memories they triggered.

_Master Ky Narec. His open, warm smile.  
Feeling loved and cherished and important.  
His almost fatherly pride as she worked hard and learned the ways of the Force and of the sword._

She had been happy and innocent then.  
And weak like only a kriffing Jedi pup could be. With the benefit of hindsight, it was obvious that her Master's efforts for peace would be cut short by the warlords. She knew she should despise her older self and her Master for their weakness, but deep in her heart she missed those innocent times, when everything had been simple and clear, and she missed him, the father she had never had, her only friend.  
If he could see her now, he would probably hate her for what she had become, but what she had done, she had done for him, to avenge him and to bring his idea to fruition.  
Rattatak had known relative peace and order under her rule. Maybe the people had not thrived, but they had managed to survive a bit better than under a plethora of warring warlords.  
She had done what she could, for as long as she could, and if Master Ky Narec was still out there somewhere, in any shape or form, she hoped that he understood.

Her anger and disappointment completely forgotten, Asajj turned off the light with a flick of the Force. She curled up in the infirmary bed, holding the saber hilts close to her chest, and cried herself to sleep.


End file.
